Evolution of Photocurrent during Coadsorption of Cs and O on GaAs （100）

The photocurrent and spectral response characteristics of gallium arsenide （GaAs） are obtained by a multiinformation measurement system, and the evolution of the photocurrent versus the Cs：O flux ratio is investigated. The experimental results show that the photocurrent increases approximately exponentially after the first exposure to Cs until a maximum sensitivity is reached, the detailed evolution process and the ultimate photocurrent are different for different samples. These differences are analysed, and according to the process of coadsorption of Cs and oxygen on GaAs, an equation is presented to explain the increase of photocurrent.     

Current-voltage characteristics simulation and analysis of 4H-SiC metal-semiconductor-metal ultraviolet photodetectors

The current-voltage (Ⅰ-Ⅴ) characteristics of 4H-SiC metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) ultraviolet pho- todetector with different finger widths and spacings,different carrier concentrations and thicknesses of n-type epitaxial layer are simulated.The simulation results indicate that the dark current and the pho- tocurrent both increase when the finger width increases.But the effect of finger width on the dark current is more significant.On the other hand,the effect of finger spacing on the photocurrent is more significant. When the finger spacing increases,the photocurrent decreases and the dark current is almost changeless. In addition,it is found that the smaller the carrier concentration of n-type epitaxial layer is,the smaller the dark current and the larger the photocurrent will be.It is also found that I-V characteristics of MSM detector also depend on the epitaxial layer thickness.The dark current of detector is smaller and the photocurrent is larger when the epitaxial layer thickness is about 3μm.     

Physical mechanism of two-photon response in semi-insulating GaAs

The physical mechanism of two-photon response （TPR） in semi-insulating GaAs is studied. The measured photocurrent generated from the fabricated hemispherical GaAs sample responding to 1.3μm continuous wave laser shows a quadratic dependence on the coupled optical power and no saturation with the bias. The angular dependence of the photocurrent on the azimuth is in agreement with the anisotropy of double-frequency absorption （DFA） in GaAs single crystals. These results demonstrate DFA is the dominant mechanism of TPR in GaAs.     

Gate-dependent photoresponse in self-assembled graphene p–n junctions

The intrinsic photocurrent generation mechanism of a self-assembled graphene p–n junction operating at 1.55 μm is investigated experimentally.It is concluded that both a photovoltage effect and a photothermoelectric effect contribute to the final photocurrent.The photocurrent signal at the p–n junction was found to be dominated by photothermoelectric current,arising from different self-assembled doping levels.     

Investigation of Chemical-Vapour-Deposition Dialnond Alpha-Particle Detectors

Diamond films with [100] texture were prepared by a hot-silament chemical vapour deposition technique to fabricate particale detectors.the response of detectors to 5.5MeV^241 am particles is studied.The photocurrent increases linearly and then levels off with voltage,and 7nA is obtained at bias voltage of 100V.The timedependent photocurrent initially increases rapidly and then tends to reach saturation.Furthermore,a little increase of the dark-current after irradiation can be accounted for by the release of the charges captured by the trapping centres at low energy levels during irradiation.An obvious peak of the pulse height distribution can be observed,associated with the energy of 5.5MeV.     

Spin Transport under In-plane Electric Fields with Different Orientations in Undoped InGaAs/AlGaAs Multiple Quantum Wells

The spin-polarized photocurrent is used to study the in-plane electric field dependent spin transport in undoped InGaAs/AlGaAs multiple quantum wells. In the temperature range of 77–297 K, the spin-polarized photocurrent shows an anisotropic spin transport under different oriented in-plane electric fields. We ascribe this characteristic to two dominant mechanisms: the hot phonon effect and the Rashba spin-orbit effect which is influenced by the in-plane electric fields with different orientations. The formulas are proposed to fit our experiments, suggesting a guide of potential applications and devices.     

Carrier transport in III–V quantum-dot structures for solar cells or photodetectors

According to the well-established light-to-electricity conversion theory,resonant excited carriers in the quantum dots will relax to the ground states and cannot escape from the quantum dots to form photocurrent,which have been observed in quantum dots without a p–n junction at an external bias.Here,we experimentally observed more than 88% of the resonantly excited photo carriers escaping from In As quantum dots embedded in a short-circuited p–n junction to form photocurrent.The phenomenon cannot be explained by thermionic emission,tunneling process,and intermediate-band theories.A new mechanism is suggested that the photo carriers escape directly from the quantum dots to form photocurrent rather than relax to the ground state of quantum dots induced by a p–n junction.The finding is important for understanding the low-dimensional semiconductor physics and applications in solar cells and photodiode detectors.     

Photovoltage analysis of a heterojunction solar cell

According to the p-n junction model of Shockley,the relationship between the equilibrium carrier concentrations of n-type and p-type semiconductors on the edges of the depletion region of a p-n junction solar cell is analysed.The calculation results show that the photovoltage can exceed the built-in voltage for a special kind of heterojunction solar cell.When the photovoltage exceeds the built-in voltage under illumination,the dark current and the photocurrent are impeded by the peak of voltage barrier at the interface and the expression of the total I-V characteristic is given.     

Enhanced photogalvanic effect in the two-dimensional MgCl2/ZnBr2 vertical heterojunction by inhomogenous tensile stress

The photogalvanic effect (PGE) occurring in noncentrosymmetric materials enables the generation of a dc photocurrent at zero bias with a high polarization sensitivity, which makes it very attractive in photodetection. However, the magnitude of the PGE photocurrent is usually small, leading to a low photoresponsivity, and therefore hampers its practical application in photodetection. Here, we propose an approach to largely enhancing the PGE photocurrent by applying an inhomogenous mechanical stretch, based on quantum transport simulations. We model a two-dimensional photodetector consisting of the wide-bandgap MgCl₂/ZnBr₂ vertical van der Waals heterojunction with the noncentrosymmetric C_3v symmetry. Polarization-sensitive PGE photocurrent is generated under the vertical illumination of linearly polarized light. By applying inhomogenous mechanical stretch on the lattice, the photocurrent can be largely increased by up to 3 orders of magnitude due to the significantly increased device asymmetry. Our results propose an effective way to enhance the PGE by inhomogenous mechanical strain, showing the potential of the MgCl₂/ZnBr₂ vertical heterojunction in the low-power UV photodetection.     

RCE photodiodes at wavelength band of 1.06

Resonant cavity enhancement (RCE) typed optical detector and modulator which operating at wavelength band of 1.06 μm is reported. The peak quantum efficiency of detector is reasonably high as 50% without bias, and the photocurrent contrast ratio of modulator is 3.6 times at -3.5 V as compared to 0 V. The incident angle dependence of RCE device's photoelectric response is investigated carefully.     

Ultraviolet Sensitive Ultrafast Photovoltaic Effect in Tilted KTaO3 Single Crystals

An ultraviolet sensitive ultrafast photovoltaic effect is observed in tilted 10° KTaO3 （KT） single crystals. The rise time of the transient photovoltaic pulse is 497.4 ps and the full width at half maximum is 974.6 ps under irradiation of a 266 nm laser pulse with 25 ps duration. An open-circuit photovoltage sensitivity of 328 mV/mJ and a photocurrent sensitivity of 460 mA/mJ are obtained. The experimental results demonstrate the potential applications of KT single crystals in ultraviolet detection.     

Influences of polarization effect and p-region doping concentration on the photocurrent response of solar-blind p–i–n avalanche photodiodes

The influences of polarization and p-region doping concentration on the photocurrent response of Al0.4Ga0.6N/Al0.4Ga0.6N/Al0.65Ga0.35N p–i–n avalanche photodetector are studied in a wide range of reverse bias voltages.The simulation results indicate that the photocurrent under high inverse bias voltage decreases with the increase of polarization effect,but increases rapidly with the increase of effective doping concentration in p-type region.These phenomena are analyzed based on the calculations of the intensity and distribution of the electric field.A high p-region doping concentration in the p–i–n avalanche photodetector is shown to be important for the efficient compensation for the detrimental polarization-induced electrostatic field.     

Terahertz emission by balanced nonlinear effects in air plasma

The evolution of terahertz （THz） waveform in air plasma driven by low-energy few-cycle laser pulses is investigated to improve the accuracy of the carrier envelope phase （CEP） determination. Based on the transient photocurrent model, a balanced spatial distribution of the Kerr and free-electron effects in the plasma is found at 109 μJ input energy. THz inversion occurs only once at the initial CEP of 0.5π, in which high-precision measurement of the CEP of few-cycle laser pulses is achieved.     

Quadratic nonlinear response to 1.56-μm continuous wave laser in semi-insulating GaAs

The nonlinear photoresponse to a 1.56μm infrared continuous wave laser in semi-insulating （SI） galliu- marsenide （GaAs） is examined. The double-frequency absorption （DFA） is responsible for the nonlinear photoresponse based on the quadratic dependence of the photocurrent separately on the coupled optical power and bias voltage. The electric field-induced DFA remarkably affects the native DFA in SI GaAs. The surface electric field or the surface band-bending of SI GaAs significantly affects the magnitude variation of the Dhotocurrent and dark current     

A Photovoltaic InAs Quantum-Dot Infrared Photodetector

A photovoltaic quantum dot infrared photodetector with InAs/GaAs/AIGaAs structures is reported. The detector is sensitive to normal incident light. At zero bias and 78K, a clear spectral response in the range of 2-7μm has been obtained with peaks at 3.1, 4.8 and 5.7μm. The bandgap energies of GaAs and Al0.2Ga0.8As at 78K are calculated and the energy diagram of the transitions in the Quantum-Dot Infrared Photodetector （QDIP） is given out. The photocurrent signals can be detected up to 110 K, which is state-of-the-art for photovoltaic QDIP, The photovoltaic effect in our detector is a result of the enhanced band asymmetry as we design in the structure.     

In-situ multi-information measurement system for preparing gallium nitride photocathode

We introduce the first domestic in-situ multi-information measurement system for a gallium nitride (GaN) photo- cathode. This system can successfully fulfill heat cleaning and activation for GaN in an ultrahigh vacuum environment and produce a GaN photocathode with a negative electron affinity (NEA) status. Information including the heat clean- ing temperature, vacuum degree, photocurrent, electric current of cesium source, oxygen source, and the most important information about the spectral response, or equivalently, the quantum efficiency (QE) can be obtained during prepa- ration. The preparation of a GaN photocathode with this system indicates that the optimal heating temperature in a vacuum is about 700 C. We also develop a method of quickly evaluating the atomically clean surface with the vacuum degree versus wavelength curve to prevent possible secondary contamination when the atomic level cleaning surface is tested with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The photocurrent shows a quick enhancement when the current ratio between the cesium source and oxygen source is 1.025. The spectral response of the GaN photocathode is flat in a wavelength range from 240 nm to 365 nm, and an abrupt decline is observed at 365 nm, which demonstrates that with the in-situ multi-information measurement system the NEA GaN photocathode can be successfully prepared.     

Bandwidth improvement of high power uni-traveling-carrier photodiodes by reducing the series resistance and capacitance

A backside illuminated mesa-structure In Ga As/In P modified uni-traveling-carrier photodiode(MUTC-PD) with wide bandwidth and high saturation power is fabricated and investigated. The device structure is optimized to reduce the capacitance and resistance. For the 22-μm-diameter device, the maximum responsivity at 1.55 μm is 0.5 A/W, and the 3-d B cutoff frequency reaches up to 28 GHz. The output photocurrent at the 1-d B compression point is measured to be 54 m A at 25 GHz, with a corresponding output radio frequency(RF) power of up to 15.5 d Bm. The saturation characteristics of the MUTC-PD are also verified by the electric field simulation, and electric field collapse is found to be the cause of the saturation phenomenon.     

Influence of cesium on the stability of a GaAs photocathode

The stability of a reflection-mode GaAs photocathode has been investigated by monitoring the photocurrent and the spectral response at room temperature.We observe the photocurrent of the cathode decaying with time in the vacuum system under the action of Cs current,and find that the Cs atoms residing in the vacuum system are helpful in prolonging the life of the cathode.We examine the evolution and analyse the influence of the barrier on the spectral response of the cathode.Our results support the double dipolar model for the explanation of the negative electron affinity effect.     

Enhanced THz Radiation from Spatially Inhomogeneous Fields

Nonlinear terahertz(THz) radiation from gas media usually relies on the asymmetric laser-induced current produced by ultra-intense two-color laser fields with a specific phase delay. Here a new scheme is proposed and theoretically investigated, in which the radiation is generated by spatially inhomogeneous fields induced by relatively low-intensity monochromatic lasers and an array of single triangular metallic nanostructures. Our simulations are based on the classical photocurrent model and the...     

A Novel Method to Calculate the Initial Phase Difference between the Two Fibre Arms of Laser Homodyne Iuterferometer

We suggest a novel method to calculate the initial phase difference between two fibre arms of a laser homodyne interferometer. Put the two fibre arms in a temperature controller, whose short term stability is 0.02° C （measured in an hour）, then measure the interference photocurrent and the photocurrents from the two fibre arms at a fixed temperature. With these three photocurrents we can calculate the value of the initial phase difference. We set up a simple laser homodyne interferometer to test the theory. The experimental results are repeatable and the measurement precision is about 0.04°. It is theoretically and experimentally proven that this method is potentially easy and practical.