Advances on photoconductive InAs/GaSb type-II superlattice long-wavelength infrared detectors for high operating temperature

The fabrication and characterization of InAs/GaSb type-II superlattice long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) photodetectors for high operating temperature (HOT) are assessed regarding possible device yield. We investigate laterally-operated photoconductors with a detector cutoff wavelength in the LWIR at an operating temperature accessible with 3-stage thermoelectric cooling, realized by suitably tailoring the layer composition. Type-II superlattices with a layer composition of 14 monolayers InAs and 7 monolayers GaSb are grown on semi-insulating 3-inch GaAs substrates. We report on the growth of three different buffer layer variants that serve as growth templates for GaSb-based layers on GaAs substrates. The characterization of 75 nominally equal single element detectors per sample evidences the reliability of device processing. The electro-optical evaluation of a randomly chosen subset indicates a high uniformity of responsivity and noise of LWIR InAs/GaSb HOT photoconductors. At 210 K, the devices operate at a cutoff wavelength of 10.5 μm and achieve a mean peak spectral detectivity of 3.3 × 10⁸ Jones.