Dark current improvement by an in-situ plasma treatment on type-II superlattice LWIR photodetectors

We report our recent work on the fabrication of type-II superlattice (T2SL) LWIR nBn photodetectors. It is well known that the dangling bonds or the oxidized element on the etched mesa sidewall increase a dark current. Therefore, the passivation and treatment process for the mesa surface is the key for detector performance. In this work, we present an in-situ surface plasma treatment after the dry-etch process for the pixel isolation. To investigate the effects of the plasma treatment for the various gases (CHF3, H2, and H2/Ar), the optical and electrical analysis were performed. The results show that H2/Ar plasma treatment was effective for removing Sb-oxides at dry-etched surface. The fabricated devices which was measured at -0.1 V and 80 K shows the dark current density of -3.9 ｘ 10-6 A/cm-2 .