Avalanche photodiode detector

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9570647-B2
Application number	US-201514642734-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 9, 2015
Priority date	Nov 27, 2006
Publication date	Feb 14, 2017
Grant date	Feb 14, 2017

Abstract

An avalanche photodiode detector is provided. The avalanche photodiode detector comprises an absorber region having an absorption layer for receiving incident photons and generating charged carriers; and a multiplier region having a multiplication layer; wherein the multiplier region is on a mesa structure separate from the absorber region and is coupled to the absorber region by a bridge for transferring charged carriers between the absorber region and multiplier region.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An avalanche photodiode detector, comprising:
an absorber region disposed on a substrate and comprising a first mesa comprising an insulating layer disposed on the substrate, an N-doped contact layer disposed on the insulating layer, a first contact disposed on the N-doped contact layer, and an absorption layer disposed on the N-doped contact layer, the absorption layer configured to receive incident photons and to generate charged carriers; and
a multiplier region disposed on the substrate on a second mesa separate from the first mesa, the second mesa comprising an N-doped layer disposed on the substrate, a multiplication layer disposed on the N-doped layer, a quantum well disposed over the multiplication layer opposite the N-doped layer, an N-well disposed over the quantum well opposite the multiplication layer, and a second contact directly disposed on the N-well; and
a metal bridge connecting the first contact and the second contact.

2. The avalanche photodiode detector of claim 1 , wherein bias across the absorber region is maintained by an electrical connection between the first contact and a third contact, the third contact on a P-doped layer which is disposed on the N-doped contact layer.

3. The avalanche photodiode detector of claim 1 , wherein the absorption layer has a larger surface area than the multiplication layer.

Assignees

• Boeing Co

Inventors

• Yuan Ping
• Boisvert Joseph C
• Krut Dmitri D
• Sudharsanan Rengarajan

Classifications

• H01L31/108

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01L31/035281

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01L31/035236

  Electricity · mapped topic

• Y02E10/50

  Photovoltaic [PV] energy · CPC title

• B82Y20/00

  Nanooptics, e.g. quantum optics or photonic crystals · CPC title