Dual-band quantum-well infrared sensing array having commonly biased contact layers

• US 6,184,538 B1
• Filed: 10/16/1998
• Issued: 02/06/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 10/16/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: California Institute of Technology
• Original Assignee: California Institute of Technology
• Inventors: Liu, John K., Bandara, Sumith V., Gunapala, Sarath D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Jackson, Jr., Jerome
• Assistant Examiner(s): Baumeister, Bradley W.
• Application Number:
  US09/173,965
• Time in Patent Office: 844 Days
• Field of Search: 257/15, 257/17, 257/21, 257/22, 257/440, 257/443, 257/447, 257/448, 257/459, 257/460, 257/464, 257/466, 257/184, 250/338.4, 250/339.02, 438/54, 438/57, 438/66, 438/67, 438/74, 438/94
• US Class Current: 257/21
• CPC Class Codes: B82Y 20/00 Nanooptics, e.g. quantum optics or photonic crystals
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 27/14652 Multispectral infrared imagers, having a stacked pixel-element structure, e.g. npn, npnpn or MQW structures
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 31/0352 characterised by their shape or by the shapes, relative sizes or disposition of the semiconductor regions
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 31/035236 Superlattices; Multiple quantum well structures
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 31/11 characterised by two potential barriers, e.g. bipolar phototransistors
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 977/759 Quantum well dimensioned for intersubband transitions, e.g. for use in unipolar light emitters or quantum well infrared photodetectors

Abstract

Quantum-well sensing arrays for detecting radiation with two or more wavelengths. Each pixel includes at least two different quantum-well sensing stacks that are biased at a common voltage.

Claims

1. A semiconductor radiation sensing array comprising a plurality of sensing pixels formed on a semiconductor substrate, each sensing pixel including:

a first semiconductor contact layer doped to have a predetermined type of conductivity;

a first quantum-well sensing stack formed over said first semiconductor contact layer and configured to have a plurality of alternating semiconductor layers which form a first number of quantum wells of a first well width and are doped at a first doping level, said first quantum-well sensing stack responsive to radiation at a first operating wavelength to produce a first amount of charged carriers;

at least one second semiconductor contact layer doped to have said predetermined type of conductivity and formed on said first quantum-well sensing stack;

a second quantum-well sensing stack formed over said second semiconductor contact layer and configured to have a plurality of alternating semiconductor layers which form a second number of quantum wells of a second well width and are doped at a second doping level, said second quantum-well sensing stack responsive to radiation at a second operating wavelength different than said first operating wavelength to produce a second amount of charged carriers;

a third semiconductor contact layer doped to have said predetermined type of conductivity and formed on said second quantum-well sensing stack,

wherein said first and third semiconductor contact layers are maintained at a common bias electrical potential with respect to said second semiconductor contact layer so that said first and second quantum-well sensing stacks are biased by a common voltage difference.

2. The array as in claim 1, wherein said first and second quantum-well sensing stacks operate based on intraband transitions.

3. The array as in claim 2, wherein said first operating wavelength is longer than said second operating wavelength, said first well width is substantially equal to said second well width, and said first quantum-well sensing stack has less quantum wells than said second quantum-well sensing stack.

4. The array as in claim 1, wherein at least one of said first and second quantum-well sensing stacks includes Al_xGa₁₋

xAs/GaAs, Al<sub>1−

x</sub>Ga<sub>1−

x</sub>As/In_yGa<sub>1−

y</sub>As/GaAs, Ga_xIn<sub>1−

x</sub>P/InP, GaAs, InP, Al_xIn<sub>1−

x</sub>P/InP, or In_xAl<sub>1−

x</sub>As/AlAs, where x and y represent relative molar ratios.

5. The array as in claim 1, further comprising a readout multiplexer array having readout capacitors, wherein said readout multiplexer array is electrically coupled to simultaneously produce a first output signal indicative of said first amount of charged carriers in said first quantum-well sensing stack from each sensing pixel and a second output signal indicative of said second amount of charged carriers in said second quantum-well sensing stack from each sensing pixel.

6. The array as in claim 1, wherein said first and second quantum-well sensing arrays are so configured by adjusting respective numbers of wells, widths of wells, and doping levels of wells in accordance with an intensity difference between energy at said first operating wavelength and energy at said second operating wavelength that said first amount of charged carriers and second amount of charge carriers are within same order of magnitude from each other.

7. The array as in claim 1, further comprising a radiation-reflective layer formed over said third semiconductor contact layer and configured to reflect radiation rays that are substantially perpendicular to said third semiconductor contact layer to produce reflected radiation rays having polarization components parallel to said third semiconductor contact layer.

8. The array as in claim 7, wherein said radiation-reflective layer includes a reflective grating having a first set of grating features for reflecting radiation at said first operating wavelength and a second set of grating features for reflecting radiation at said second operating wavelength.

9. The array as in claim 2, wherein each quantum-well sensing stack is configured to place the excited state near the barrier potential of each quantum well so that the thermionic emission energy barrier of the quantum well is substantially matched to the photoionization energy that is defined by the potential difference between the ground state and the excited state of a intraband transition.

10. The array as in claim 9, wherein each quantum-well sensing stack is configured in such a way that the respective thermionic emission energy barrier of the quantum well is within 2% of the photonionization energy.

11. A semiconductor radiation sensing array comprising a plurality of sensing pixels formed on a semiconductor substrate, each sensing pixel including:

a first semiconductor contact layer doped to have a predetermined type of conductivity;

a first quantum-well sensing stack formed over said first semiconductor contact layer and configured to have a plurality of quantum-wells formed of alternating semiconductor layers and responsive to radiation at a first operating wavelength to produce a first amount of charged carriers;

at least one second semiconductor contact layer doped to have said predetermined type of conductivity and formed on said first quantum-well sensing stack, said second semiconductor contact layer having a first portion and a second portion;

a second quantum-well sensing stack formed over said first portion of said second semiconductor contact layer and configured to have a plurality of quantum wells formed of alternating semiconductor layers and responsive to radiation at a second operating wavelength different than said first operating wavelength to produce a second amount of charged carriers;

a first radiation-reflective layer formed over said second portion of said second semiconductor contact layer;

a third semiconductor contact layer doped to have said predetermined type of conductivity and formed on said second quantum-well sensing stack; and

a second radiation-reflective layer formed over said third semiconductor contact layer,

wherein said first and third semiconductor contact layers are maintained at a common bias electrical potential with respect to said second semiconductor contact layer so that said first and second quantum-well sensing stacks are biased by a common voltage difference.

12. The array as in claim 11, wherein said first and second quantum-well sensing stacks operate based on intraband transitions.

13. The array as in claim 11, wherein at least one of said first and second quantum-well sensing stacks includes Al_xGa₁₋

xAs/GaAs, Al<sub>1−

x</sub>Ga<sub>1−

x</sub>As/In_yGa<sub>1−

y</sub>As/GaAs, Ga_xIn<sub>1−

x</sub>P/InP, GaAs, InP, Al_xIn<sub>1−

x</sub>P/InP, or In_xAl<sub>1−

x</sub>As/AlAs, where x represents a relative molar ratio.

14. The array as in claim 11, further comprising a readout multiplexer array having readout capacitors, wherein each pixel of said readout multiplexer array is electrically coupled to a corresponding sensing pixel and respectively produces a first output signal indicative of said first amount of charged carriers in said first quantum-well sensing stack and a second output signal indicative of said second amount of charged carriers in said second quantum-well sensing stack.

15. The array as in claim 11, wherein said first and second quantum-well sensing stacks are so configured by adjusting respective numbers of wells, widths of wells, and doping levels of wells in accordance with an intensity difference between energy at said first operating wavelength and energy at said second operating wavelength that said first amount of charged carriers and second amount of charge carriers are within same order of magnitude from each other.

16. The array as in claim 11, wherein said first radiation-reflective layer includes a first reflective grating operable to reflect normally incident radiation rays at said first operating wavelength to one or more desired directions and said second radiation-reflective layer includes a second reflective grating having a first set of grating features for reflecting radiation at said first operating wavelength and a second set of grating features for reflecting radiation at said second operating wavelength.

17. The array as in claim 11, wherein said first radiation-reflective layer includes reflective surface features of about said first operating wavelength and said second radiation-reflective layer includes reflective surface features of about said first and second operating wavelengths.

18. A method for constructing and using a semiconductor radiation sensing array to detect radiation having at least two wavelengths, comprising:

forming a first quantum-well sensing stack and a second quantum-well sensing stack in a sensing pixel to respectively detect radiation at a first operating wavelength and radiation at a second operating wavelength, wherein said first and second quantum-well sensing stacks have different number of quantum wells; and

applying a common bias electrical voltage to both said first and second quantum-well sensing stacks to produce first and second photocurrents that respectively represent intensities at said first and second operating wavelengths in the received radiation.

19. The method as in claim 18, further comprising selecting respective numbers of wells, widths of wells, and doping levels of wells of said first and second quantum-well sensing stacks according to an intensity difference between energy at said first operating wavelength and energy at said second operating wavelength so that said first and second photocurrents are within same order of magnitude from each other.

20. The method as in claim 18, further comprising configuring each quantum-well sensing stack to place the excited state near the barrier potential of each quantum well so that the thermionic emission energy barrier of the quantum well is substantially matched to the photoionization energy that is defined by the potential difference between the ground state and the excited state of a intraband transition.