Electrical performance and Raman scattering characterization of GaAs planar photoconductors

Raman scattering has been used to characterize the effects of processing techniques on the photosensitive area of GaAs planar photoconductors. The longitudinal optic (LO) phonon observed in the first-order Raman spectra was studied to probe the consequences of both chemical and plasma etching on the crystalline quality of an n-doped GaAs photosentitive area. This method has also been used to examine the stress at the interface of a Si₃N₄ film and an n-doped GaAs surface. For this purpose, three specially designed GaAs planar photoconductors (SN 353, AN 344, SN 344) have been fabricated. Electrical measurements on the photoconductors support the results of Raman study. First, as expected, increasing the number of processes leads to slightly poorer electrical performance. Secondly, a significant strain-induced shift in the GaAs LO phonon frequency has been observed under the Si₃N₄ film for the AN 344 photoconductor. However, the electrical performances of this device clearly indicate no dramatic change in the value of the n-doped surface potential.