| dc.description.abstract | Interband cascade (IC) devices are a family of quantum engineered heterostructures that include: IC lasers (ICLs), IC infrared photodetectors (ICIPs) and IC thermophotovoltaic (ICTPV) devices. In these structures, the transport of carriers across different stages is made possible by the type-II broken-gap band alignment between InAs and GaSb. Many shortcomings in conventional single absorber narrow-bandgap devices, such as short carrier lifetime and limited diffusion length (particularly at high temperatures) can be addressed by a multiple-stage architecture. While multiple photons need to be absorbed to output one electron in a multi-stage detector or photovoltaic cell, the multiple-stage architecture has some big benefits, especially at high temperatures and long wavelengths. The multiple excitations (depending on the number of stages) of each electron in an ICIP result in lower noise (higher signal-to-noise) than conventional single-stage detectors with thick absorbers. Furthermore, by keeping individual absorbers shorter than the minority carrier diffusion length most of the photogenerated carriers can be collected. This efficient collection of photogenerated carriers along with the high open-circuit voltages lead to high conversion efficiencies in ICTPV devices. The theoretical and experimental exploration of these properties of ICIPs and ICTPV devices are the main focus of this dissertation.
Design and characterization of ICIPs in different bands including short- through very long-wavelength IR are discussed in detail. It is shown that a multiple-stage detector has superior performance over a single-stage detector at high temperatures.
In contrast to single-stage detectors, in ICIPs high-frequency bandwidths can be achieved with no compromise on the device sensitivity. The high-frequency modeling and characterization of ICIPs reveal gigahertz bandwidth (~1.3 GHz) with high detectivity (˃1E9 cm.Hz1/2/W) for three-stage mid-IR ICIPs at 300 K. A comparative study of time domain characteristics (i.e., eye diagrams) of single-stage detectors and ICIPs (with the total absorber thickness equal to that of the single-stage devices) confirmed the higher bandwidth and shorter fall and rise times in ICIPs.
The unidirectional flow of carriers in IC lasers makes their structure feasible for infrared detection. Therefore, it is possible to realize monolithically integrated lasers and detectors on a single chip. Since the detector section is edge-illuminated in these bi-functional devices, detectivities higher than 1E10 cm.Hz1/2/W were estimated for these detectors at room temperature (RT). High-detectivity and high-speed ICIPs along with low power consumption ICLs make monolithically integrated IC lasers and detectors a practical choice for compact spectrometers and lab-on-a-chip devices.
Two sets of ICTPV devices (Eg < 0.5 eV) were investigated to understand the influence of number of stages/absorber thickness on the TPV cells performance. Efficiencies up to ~10% were achieved in three-stage ICTPVs with 0.41 eV bandgap. Also, narrow-bandgap ICTPV devices (Eg < 0.25 eV) were demonstrated at RT and above with a high open-circuit voltage (~0.65 V at 300 K). These results validate the benefits of a multiple stage architecture with thin individual absorbers for efficient conversion of long wavelength radiant photons from relatively low-temperature heat sources into electricity. Additionally, an effective characterization method for extracting series and shunt resistances has been developed for high-concentration TPV cells. | en_US |
