Nitride-based photodetectors: from visible to X-ray monitoring

Abstract The performance of nitride-based photodetectors is investigated beyond the usual near-UV (400–300 nm) and mid-UV (300–200 nm) operation ranges. The responses of metal–semiconductor–metal (MSM) photodiodes were analyzed in the vacuum–UV and soft X-ray regions. To interpret the results, the absorption properties and the attributes of each of the photons with energies for producing multiple electron–hole pairs were considered. The soft X-ray characterization showed that in-plane MSMs worked efficiently up to photon energies of 600 eV. Above this value, the absorption decrease makes the diffusion length and layer thickness become critical parameters for the detector behavior. To perform detection in the violet and near-UV, InGaN-based photoconductors were fabricated and spectrally characterized. The devices presented abrupt wavelength cut-offs, demonstrating that the InGaN compositional fluctuations were tolerable up to In contents of 10% for fabricating selective photodetectors. Back-face illumination allowed us to obtain bandpass detectors for these spectral ranges.