Elimination of surface leakage in gate controlled type-II InAs/GaSb mid-infrared photodetectors

The electrical performance of mid-infrared type-II superlattice M-barrier photodetectors is shown to be limited by surface leakage. By applying gate bias on the mesa sidewall surface, leakage current is significantly reduced. Qualitatively IV modeling shows diffusion-dominated behavior of dark current at temperatures greater than 120 K. At 110 K, the dark current of gated device is reduced by more than 2 orders of magnitude, reaching the measurement system noise floor. With a quantum efficiency of 48% in front side illumination configuration, a 4.7μm cut-off gated device attains a specific detectivity of 2.5 × 1014 cmHz1/2/W at 110 K, which is 3.6 times higher than in ungated devices.