Interfacial Intermixing and Its Impact on the Energy Band Structure in Interband Cascade Infrared Photodetectors

Multiple-stage interband cascade infrared photodetector (ICIP) is a new class of semiconductor infrared photodetector that exhibits improved device performance in terms of responsivity and detectivity. The design of the device structure and the electronic structure on superlattices and quantum wells assume abrupt interfaces. However, the emergence of possible interface segregation and atom exchange can only be determined experimentally, impacting the device performance. In this work, the interface atom intermixing and their effects on the energy band structure in a molecular beam epitaxy grown ICIP are studied. Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) reveals atom diffusion and intermixing between the constituent layers of the cascade structure, causing a shift in the quantum state energy levels of the layers and the consequent misalignment of the cascade structures. Combining the STEM observation with high-resolution X-ray diffraction, the alloy composition profiles of the layers are determined. Using the "real" graded composition profiles, the effective band gap of the superlattice absorber and the energy levels of the relaxation region and the tunneling region are recalculated showing a cutoff wavelength of the superlattice absorber 4.93 μm, which is 0.78 μm smaller than that calculated using the nominal step composition profile. However, its agreement is greatly improved with the measured cutoff wavelength of 5.03 μm. The energy level of the narrowest quantum well in the relaxation region is 0.091 eV higher than the conduction miniband of the absorber, which is also consistent with the experiments that the pho-response exits a "turn on" voltage of 0.1 V. The results reported here will help optimize the energy structure design of future ICIP with improved device performance.