Room-temperature long-wave infrared detector with thin double layers of amorphous germanium and amorphous silicon

A longwave-infrared photodetector made of double layers of 100nm amorphous germanium (a-Ge) and 25nm amorphous silicon (a-Si) have been demonstrated. Under room temperature, the device shows the responsivity of 1.7 A/W, detectivity of 6×108 Jones, and noise equivalent power (NEP) of 5pW/√Hz under 5V bias and at 20kHz operation. Studies of frequency dependent characteristics and device modeling indicate that, above 100Hz or beyond the bandwidth of thermal response, the device operates as a quantum detector having the photoelectrons produced by optical excitation from the bandtail states to the mobile states of a-Ge. The superior device performance may be attributed to the combination of two amplification mechanisms: photoconductive gain in a-Ge and cycling excitation process (CEP) in a-Si, with the latter being the dominant factor. Besides its attractive performance, the device has a simple structure and is easy to fabricate at low cost, thus holding promise for night vision, sensing, autonomous driving, and many other applications.