Self-assembled semiconductor quantum dot infrared photodetector operating at room temperature and focal plane array

Self-assembled semiconductor quantum dots have attracted much attention because of their novel properties and thus possible practical applications including the lasers, detectors and modulators. Especially the photodetectors which have quantum dots in their active region have been developed and show promising performances such as high operation temperature due to three dimensional confinement of the carriers and normal incidence in contrast to the case of quantum well detectors which require special optical coupling schemes. Here we report our recent results for mid-wavelength infrared quantum dot infrared photodetector grown by low-pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. The material system we have investigated consists of 25 period self-assembled InAs quantum dot layers on InA1As barriers, which are lattice-matched to InP substrates, covered with InGaAs quantum well layers and InA1As barriers. This active region was sandwiched by highly doped InP contact layers. The device operates at 4.1 μm with a peak detectivity of 2.8×1011 cmHz1/2/W at 120 K and a quantum efficiency of 35 %. The photoresponse can be observed even at room temperature resulting in a peak detectivity of 6×107 cmHz1/2/W. A 320×256 focal plane array has been fabricated in this kind of device. Its performance will also be discussed here.