Dark Current Transport and Avalanche Mechanism in HgCdTe Electron-Avalanche Photodiodes

HgCdTe electron avalanche photodiodes (e-APDs) have been widely used for low-flux and high-speed application. To better understand the dark current transport and electron-avalanche mechanism of the devices and optimize the structures, we performed accurate numerical simulations of the current-voltage characteristics and multiplication factor in planar homojunction (p-i-n) HgCdTe APDs. Based on the Okuto-Crowell avalanche model, an efficient physical model has been obtained by concerning the major generation-recombination processes, such as trap-assisted tunneling and band-to-band tunneling (BBT) recombination. Simulated current-voltage characteristics were in good agreement with available data in the literature, which demonstrates the validity of the proposed model. The origins of dark current in high reverse voltages are jointly dominated by BBT and the avalanche mechanism. It is proved to be effective for reducing BBT by improving the uniformity of the electric field distribution across the junction. The electric performance of p-i-n e-APD can be improved by optimizing the APD structure, such as eliminating the sharp corners of junctions, light doping, and the appropriate thickness in multiplication region. Our works provide a good deal of insight into the fundamental carrier transport processes involved in HgCdTe e-APDs.