Scalability of dark current in silicon PIN photodiode

The mechanism for electrical conduction is investigated by the dark temperature-dependent current–voltage characteristics of Si PIN photodiodes with different photosensitive areas.The characteristic tunneling energy E_(00) can be obtained to be 1.40 me V,1.53 me V,1.74 me V,1.87 me V,and 2.01 me V,respectively,for the photodiodes with L = 0.25 mm,0.5 mm,1 mm,1.5 mm,and 2 mm by fitting the ideality factor n versus temperature curves according to the tunneling-enhanced recombination mechanism.The trap-assisted tunneling-enhanced recombination in the i-layer plays an important role in our device,which is consistent with the experimental result that area-dependent leakage current is dominant with the side length larger than 1 mm of the photosensitive area.Our results reveal that the quality of the bulk material plays an important role in the electrical conduction mechanism of the devices with the side length larger than 1 mm of the photosensitive area.