Enhanced Responsivity of Photodetectors Realized via Impact Ionization.docVIP

Sensors 2012, 12, 1280-1287; doi:10.3390/s120201280 OPEN ACCESS sensors ISSN 1424-8220 /journal/sensors Article Enhanced Responsivity of Photodetectors Realized via Impact Ionization Ji Yu 1,2, Chong-Xin Shan 1,*, Qian Qiao 1,2, Xiu-Hua Xie 1,2, Shuang-Peng Wang 1, Zhen-Zhong Zhang 1 and De-Zhen Shen 1 1 State Key Laboratory of Luminescence and Applications, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130033, China; E-Mails: yuji4268@163.com (J.Y.); qiaoqian1985@ (Q.Q.); xhxie001@126.com (X.-H.X.); wsp0510@163.com (S.P.W.); exciton@163.com (Z.Z.Z.); shendz@ (D.Z.S.) 2 Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: shancx@. Received: 20 December 2011; in revised form: 14 January 2012 / Accepted: 17 January 2012 / Published: 31 January 2012 Abstract: To increase the responsivity is one of the vital issues for a photodetector. By employing ZnO as a representative material of ultraviolet photodetectors and Si as a representative material of visible photodetectors, an impact ionization process, in which additional carriers can be generated in an insulating layer at a relatively large electric field, has been employed to increase the responsivity of a semiconductor photodetector. It is found that the responsivity of the photodetectors can be enhanced by tens of times via this impact ionization process. The results reported in this paper provide a general route to enhance the responsivity of a photodetector, thus may represent a step towards high-performance photodetectors. Keywords: photodetector; responsivity; impact ionization 1. Introduction Photodetectors are sensors of light or other electromagnetic energy, and they have a variety of applications including image sensing, communications, environmental monitoring, chemical/biological sensing,