UV METAL SEMICONDUCTOR METAL

DETECTORS
A robust choice for (Al, Ga)N based detectors

J-L. REVERCHON \ M. MOSCA 1, N. GRANDJEAN

F. SEMOND 2, J-Y. DUBOZ 2, and L. HIRSCH 3

2,

F. OMNES

2,

1 Thales

Research & Technology, 91404 Orsay Cedex, France

CRHEA-CNRS, rue Bernard Gregory, Sophia Antipolis, 06560 Valbonne, France
3 IXL-CNRS-ENSEIRB, University of Bordeaux I, 33405 Talence, France
2

Abstract:

UV detection is interesting for combustion optimization, air contamination

control, fire and solar blind rocket launching detection. Most of these applications require that UV detectors have a huge dynamic response between UV
and the visible, and a very low dark current in the range of the UV flux measured. (Al,Ga)N alloys present a large direct bandgap in this range and therefore can be used as an active region in such detectors. To take advantage of the
large Schottky barrier, the good alloy quality, and to avoid any doping problems, we have developed MSM photodetectors. High quality material has been
grown with MOCVD and MBE on sapphire substrates. Stress management is
employed for aluminum contents up to 65% to reduce crack density. This is
correlated with non-ideal features like dark current, sub-bandgap response and
non-linearity between photocurrent and optical flux. The spectral selectivity
between UV and visible reaches five orders of magnitude. A geometry of inter-digitized fingers is optimized in regards to the peak response. The Schottky
barrier and a dielectric passivation result in dark currents lower than 1 fA up to
30 V for a 100 x 100 ).1m 2 pixel. Consequently, detectivity is mainly limited by
shot noise and corresponds to a noise of 500 photons per secondand per pixel.

Key words:

UV solar blind detectors, Metal-Semiconductor-Metal detectors, stress management in (Al,Ga)N, IBICC.

77

M.S. Shur and A. Zukauskas (eds.), UV Solid-State Light Emitters and Detectors, 77-92.
2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

J- L. Reverchon et al

78

1.

INTEREST AND SPECIFICATIONS FOR (Al,Ga)N

AS AN ACTIVE LAYER FOR UV DETECTION

1.1

(Al,Ga)N for UV Detection

Due to their use for blue LEDs and lasers, GaN based materials are gaining
more and more importance and a great effort has been undertaken in order to
improve their quality. As a result, nitrides can now be considered for many
other applications such as high power-high frequency electronics and ultraviolet (UV) detection [1,2]. As a direct band gap III-V semiconductor,
(Al,Ga)N is well suited for detecting light at energies higher than its band
gap energy and providing a large rejection at lower energies. The band gap
energy varying from 3.43 eV (GaN) to 6.2 eV (AlN), makes it possible to
adjust the wavelength of absorption from 360 nm to 195 nm. In particular,
we will focus on wavelengths of about 280 nm for which sunlight is absorbed by the ozone layer and never reaches the surface of the earth. Consequently, detectors sensitive in this range see only UV sources coming from
the earth and are said to be solar blind.
Fundamentally (Al,Ga)N based devices suffer from difficulties such as a
large activation energy required not only for magnesium p doping but also
for n doping in high aluminum content alloys. For the same reasons, ohmic
contacts are also difficult to achieve. On the contrary, this large barrier gives
the opportunity to achieve high barrier Schottky contacts. This is a great advantage for obtaining of low dark current in Schottky based detectors. Finally the main difficulties come from the quasi absence of GaN or AlN substrates. Nitrides are traditionally grown on sapphire or SiC with a lattice and
thermal expansion mismatch inducing strain, dislocations and cracks. In Section 2, we will discuss how to avoid cracks and to reduce the non-ideal features attributed to related electrical defects.

1.2

Specifications for UV Detection

UV is in the range of energy involved in chemical bonding. Thus, UV detection presents a great interest for combustion optimization, air contamination
control, UV A/UVB medical control, and fire/flame detection and in particular solar blind detection. Most of these applications require stringent specifications because of the low fluxes to be measured. Indeed UV radiation is
diffused by the Rayleigh mechanism especially when UV sources are far
away in the atmosphere. As a consequence, dark current must be as small as
possible in comparison to photocurrent. Moreover, as far as noise is con-

UV Metal Semiconductor Metal Detectors

79

cerned, a low current would diminish the shot noise and the lifnoise, which
are respectively proportional to current and current squared.
In this paper, we present (Al,Ga)N based detectors which are in competition with photomultipliers (PM) and silicon based charge coupled devices
(CCD). PMs are not available in large array configuration, are fragile, and
use a high bias. Large array CCDs are available with a huge detectivity and
even with photon counting mode but only when cooled to reduce dark current. One of the advantages of (Al,Ga)N based detectors versus PM and
ceo would be the intrinsic spectral selectivity between uv and visible. It
prevents use of interference filters whose sensitivity to non-normal incidence
is a drawback. In the case of (Al,Ga)N based detectors, such interference
filters may be added to the intrinsic selectivity to obtain even larger rejection.
Obviously, we require from photodetectors a responsivity as large as possible. It means that gain (the ratio between electron pairs created per photon
absorbed) may be close to one in the case of photovoltaic detectors and as
large as possible in the case of photoconductor or phototransistor structures.
Moreover, the proportionality between photocurrent and incident power
(linearity), must be preserved. Concerning the response time, a short one
may be expected due to the low capacitance and transit time of device [3].
Capacitance can be estimated to be lower than 0.1 pF for 100 x 100 f.1m 2 devices. Nevertheless, because of the need for large detectivity in imaging with
low fluxes, a long integration time is necessary. Thus the time response is
not so important and needs only be reasonably fast for imaging at several
hundreds of hertz.

1.3

The Choice of Metal-Semiconductor-Metal Detectors

A first kind of semiconductor detectors is the photoconductor that may show

a high internal gain defined as the ratio of lifetime of carriers to transit time
between electrodes. As we will see in Section 1.5, the lifetime depends on
density and occupancy of deep levels, so that non-ideal and uncontrolled
behaviors may appear like, e.g. a non-linear dependency of the photocurrent
on the incident power. Moreover, photoconductors present an intrinsic high
dark current leading to lifnoise. Therefore, photoconductors are not suitable
as flame detectors in terms of dark current, noise and detectivity.
(Al,Ga)N p-i-n photodiodes do not exhibit the above-mentioned drawbacks. The gain is limited to one, the current is low and the responsivity is
linear. But p-type doping with high Al content is difficult to obtain. Some
attempts to use p-GaN show that long wavelength contribution could be limited by convenient band diagram design [4]. Another difficulty is to make
good ohmic contacts on such wide bandgap semiconductors even if they are

J- L. Reverchon et a!

80

highly n doped. Generally, a high-temperature annealing cycle (700-900 C)

is necessary to make the contact ohmic. For this reason, together with the
need for a good n-type conducting layer, good Schottky photodiodes are not
so easy to achieve at high aluminum content.
Consequently, the situation is far more convenient for (Schottky) MetalSemiconductor-(Schottky) Metal (MSM) detectors that don't need either
doping or ohmic contacts. The only but important difficulty is a mismatch
between the substrates and (Al,Ga)N layers. A MSM consists only of a
photoabsorbing epitaxial layer with two interdigitated Schottky metal contacts deposited on the semiconductor surface. In this paper, we will focus on
this planar technology whose simplicity contributes to robustness.

1.4

Electrical and Optical Characterization Tools

In most detectors, dark current is measured with a picoammeter (485, Keithley), but when necessary, dark current is measured with a source/meter
(6430, Keithley) in the fA range taking care of the connections (Guarded
Tri-axial Cable). For the photoresponse measurement, we use a Xenon lamp
filtered by a monochromator and the light is focused on the back side of the
detector for samples grown on Ab0 3 , and on the front side for samples
grown on Si(lll ). The incident power is measured by a calibrated pyrometer. The detectors are biased with a voltage source and connected in series
with a transimpedance amplifier. The photocurrent is measured both in AC
conditions with a chopper and a lock-in amplifier (7220, EG&G Instruments) and in DC conditions with a picoammeter (485, Keithley). Theresponsivity is calculated as the ratio of the photocurrent to the power incident
on the detector. All measurements are made at room temperature.

1.5

Non Ideal Features in MSM

Due to dislocations or cracks, some layers may present defects that are electrically active and lead to traps or recombination centers. For MSM based on
such material, the high quantity of defects and deep levels gives poor rectifying contacts. These levels give both channels across the junction and a bowing of the conduction band that diminish the depletion thickness at the
Schottky barrier. Finally, this injection via trap-assisted tunneling corresponds to a photoconductive behavior. But, in photoconductors, responsivity
depends on the lifetime of carriers. This lifetime has been linked in many
ways to traps or deep levels [5,6,7,8]. It results in a strong nonlinearity of
photoresponse versus absorbed optical flux. These spectra also present a subband-gap absorption and a reduced dynamics depending strongly on frequency when spectra are acquired with a chopped flux.

UV Metal Semiconductor Metal Detectors

2.

81

MATERIAL GROWTH

We present here the structure used for back illuminated samples and the
conditions of growth by MOVPE and MBE. The choice of nucleation layer
and the efforts to eliminate cracks will be particularly stressed.

2.1

Sample Structures for UV Detection

One of the main difficulties encountered in the growth of nitride materials

has been the absence of a lattice matched substrate. In the case of large array
detectors, we have also to take into account that a Readout Integrated Circuit
(ROIC) on the front side obliges us to use a substrate transparent to UV.
Thus, even if GaN, AlN substrates or pseudo substrates have been improved
during the last few years, GaN ELOG (Epitaxial Lateral OverGrowth) [9] or
f.!ELOG [10] and bulk GaN [11] cannot be used. On the other hand HYPE
[12] or bulk AIN [13] substrate may be adapted to UV detection if a good
transparency to UV is guaranteed. Up to now, sapphire is still the substrate
of choice. The choice of the nucleation layer must provide good optical and
electrical qualities for (Al,Ga)N. As far as optical properties are concerned,
an AlN buffer layer is the only solution to provide transparency at 280 nm.
GaN buffer layer can be used only if its thickness is sufficiently low to guaranty transparency to UV. After the buffer growth, cracking may arise from
the lattice mismatch between (Al,Ga)N and sapphire and also between
(Al,Ga)N layers with very different aluminum contents. Thus, one of the
greatest challenges is to manage this mismatch whereas we have to use layers as thick as possible to minimize dislocations. In our case, we use a thick
window layer of 1 f.!m transparent to UV to improve materials quality. Then
the active layer is grown with a thickness of 0.4 f.!m, sufficient to easily collect carriers.

Figure 1. Left: cross section of sample structures for UV detection. ROIC is on the front side
and light comes from backside. Right: overview of interdigitized fingers of a MSM.

J- L. Reverchon et a/

82

2.2

Samples Grown by Low-Pressure Metalorganic

Vapour-Phase Epitaxy

Some samples are grown by low-pressure metalorganic vapour-phase epitaxy (LP-MOVPE) on c-sapphire substrates in an Aixtron growth chamber
AIX200 RF. Trimethylgallium, trimethylaluminum, and ammonia are used
as precursors. GaN or AIN buffer layers are 25-nm and 10-nm thick and are
grown at 525 oc and 890 C, respectively, in a pure nitrogen carrier gas.
(Al,Ga)N alloys are grown at 1180C with a V/III ratio between 2000 and
3100 in a pure hydrogen carrier gas. NH3 flux is 2 !/min and the total flux is
5 1/min. The growth pressure is low (20 mbar) in order to avoid parasitic reactions between NH3 and TMAI. Finally, the growth rate is 1 f..Lm/h for the
window layer (Alo.6sGao35N) and 1.8 flm/h for the active layer (Al 0.5Ga0.5N).
More details are given in Ref. 14. We now pay attention to layers grown
with a GaN buffer layer. We notice a strong sub band gap absorption corresponding to deep levels (Fig. 2, left) even if no crack networks are present.
All devices grown on this layer present high dark current with non-ideal features of photoconductors already mentioned. For example, we notice in
Fig. 2 (right) that the dynamics can be reduced when high bias is applied and
participate to trap-assisted tunneling across contacts. The frequency dependence also shows the long time needed to neutralize sub-band-gap absorption .

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Figure 2. Left: transmission spectra for layers grown on a GaN or AlN buffer. Right: spectral
response depending on bias and frequency for sample with GaN buffer layer.

On the contrary, the best samples have been obtained with an AlN buffer
layer. The transmission is good down to 280 nm showing the absence of
deep levels. This is confirmed by the dynamics independent of bias and AC
or DC mode used for spectral acquisition (Figure 3). Then, no deep level
contribute to sub-band-gap absorption or trap assisted tunneling across the
Schottky barrier. Consequently, the time response is due only to the transit

UV Metal Semiconductor Metal Detectors

83

time needed for carriers to cross the spacing between electrodes and nonideal features disappear. We must stress here that some good results have
been observed with the layers grown with a GaN buffer layer in the past
[14]. We don't have any clear explanation for these differences. We can only
mention that materials quality has been shown to depend closely on growth
parameters and that the average aluminum content is closer to AlN than to
GaN in such layers.

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Figure 3. Responsivity spectra as a function of bias and frequency (AC) for the sample with
AlN buffer layer.

2.3

Samples Grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

The Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) samples were grown most often on
Ah03 and exceptionally on Si(l11) substrates using NH3 as nitrogen source
in a RIBER growth chamber. Samples grown on Si(lll) even if not suitable
for backside illumination are used for transport studies. More information
concerning the growth procedure and the properties of layers can be found in
references [ 15, 16]. The best electrical properties have been achieved with a
GaN buffer layer. In Fig. 4, transmission measurements show that only 25%
of the optical flux is absorbed by this 25-nm thick buffer GaN layer. We also
notice that absorption due to the GaN buffer layer has no consequence in
spectral response. Thus, we prefer to keep this buffer layer instead of AlN
buffer. Some good quality samples have been grown with 40% of aluminum
in the window layer and 30% Al in the active layer. But when the aluminum
content increases, some cracks appear after cooling down due to an excessive tensile stress concomitant with electrical leakage in the Schottky contacts [17]. Thus a 100-nm thick AlN layer is incorporated to put epilayers in
a compressive stress, a thinner window layer was grown to reduce elastic
energy, and a lower growth temperature of 800 oc is used to limit thermal

J- L. Reverchori et a/

84

expansion consequences. In this way, we obtain layers without any cracks

and with exceptional electrical and optical properties.

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Figure 4. Transmission and response spectra of the layer grown by MBE with a GaN buffer
layer.

3.

OPTIMIZATION OF PROCESSING

3.1

Surface Preparation and Metallization

Most MSM detectors were processed for defining interdigitated fingers by

optical lithography. The spacing equals 2 or 5 11m whereas the width varies
from 1 to 10 f.lm. The surface was deoxidized in HCl for one minute and
rinsed in de-ionized water during four minutes just before being introduced
into the Joule evaporation chamber (Plassys chamber MEB550S). The contact consists of 10 nm of platinum followed by 100 nm of gold. Even if we
take care to limit time between cleaning and deposition, we can expect
(Al,Ga)N to be oxidized. Some studies have shown that an oxide could prevent leakage via dislocations. For example, some enhancement of Schottky
barrier height on (Al,Ga)N/GaN heterostructures by oxidation annealing has
also been reported [ 18]. It may explain the exceptionally low dark current
low obtained with some samples (1 fA up to 35 V). Even if oxide presence
has not been investigated here, we have observed that a smooth etching just
before deposition could increase leakage via induced defects and oxide
elimination. After lift off, annealing at 400 C during 10 minutes in nitrogen
atmosphere is used only for mechanical requirements. Higher temperatures
would induce leakage currents.

UV Metal Semiconductor Metal Detectors

3.2

85

Contact, Passivation and Connection

If we want to perform a fast evaluation of epilayers, we can use a one-step

processing for which contact pads are evaporated at the same time as electrodes. But in the case of a backside-illuminated device, we observed that
both the interdigitated electrodes and the contact pad areas contribute to the
overall photocurrent even if contact pads are placed at several tens of micrometers from the interdigitated area. In order to avoid the parasitic current
due to the contact pads, we developed another process where the Pt/Au
Schottky contacts are deposited on the (Al,Ga)N surface whereas the contact
pads are sputtered on a dielectric. Several dielectric films were tested for
their electrical passivation capability. Si 3N4 (300 nm) and Si02 (300 nm),
were deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) at
300 C. Benzocyclobutene (BCB) (1500 nm) was deposited by spin coating
and annealed under vacuum at 250 oc for 30 min. The first two PECVD materials show good passivation up to fA range at several tens of volts. Passivation has been particularly efficient in the case of layers having developed
microcracks related to excess stress. In that case, we showed that both the
dark current and the responsivity strongly depend on the crack density. By
using our two-level process, we have reduced the parasitic effects of cracks
on the dark current.

4.

TRANSPORT PROPERTIES

As we can see in Fig. 4, responsivity is limited to 0.04 A/W. This value is

.low compared to the absolute photovoltaic limit e/h v that would be
0.22A /W at 280 nm. Indeed, MSM detectors have been fabricated by many
groups on GaN [19,20] or on (Al,Ga)N [3,14,21,22] and exhibit good performance but with the same limited collection of carriers between fingers.
Collection efficiency in MSM detectors is studied here with submicronic
lithography, the ion beam induced charge collection method (IBICC), and
numerical 2-dimensional calculations of the electric field distribution.

4.1

Submicronic MSM byE-beam Lithography

A way to improve collection of carriers is to reduce spacing and trapping

between the electrodes. Here, we will study the effects of spacing on both
the spectral response and the absolute value of the photoresponse. We compare sub-micron devices obtained by electron beam lithography (the width
equals 1 !lm, and the spacing is 0.6 !lm) to interdigitized fingers defined by
optical lithography (the finger width and spacing equal to 2 !lm) in terms of

J- L. Reverchon eta!

86

responsivity and spectral selectivity. Exceptionally, the (Al,Ga)N layers are

grown on a Si(lll) substrate. Pt/Au Schottky contacts are evaporated and
lifted off. The dark currents are in the pA range for biases up to 10 V and 50
V for 0.6-f.lm and 2-11m spacing, respectively.
The spectral responses of two different detectors are shown in Fig. 5
(left). The cut-off wavelength is 280 nm, with a 3 decades rejection ratio
between 280 and 300 nm for both spacings. For the 2-f..lm MSM, the response presents a plateau from 300 to 365 nm corresponding to the GaN
layer that is grown underneath the active (Al,Ga)N region [21]. This component, not present in de measurements is due to a capacitive coupling between
the 2-D electron gas at the AlN/GaN interface and the electrodes. At a positive bias of 40 V, the responsivity is 0.044 A/W corresponding to a 20%
quantum efficiency. As far as the 0.6-f.lm MSM is concerned, the response
decreases more regularly, without any plateau, and shows an overall better
rejection of near-UV light. Thus, the parasitic response in the underlying
GaN layer is largely reduced for the applied de field and for the ac photovoltage. This is due to a reduced coupling between the GaN layer and the
electrodes when the finger spacing is reduced.

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.i:'

0.20

0.10

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0 .00

:2

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'

20

40

60

Bias {V)

280

320

360

Lamnda (nm)

400

Figure 5. Left: response spectra with 2 J.tm and 0.6 J.tm spacing MSM; responsivity versus
bias is given in the inset. Right: contours of equi-values of electric field found from the 2
MSM geometries.

The variation of responses with bias is shown in the inset of Fig. 5 (left).
We verify that the dark current at a given bias generally varies as the inverse
of the finger spacing, although deviations from this law can be seen. The
responsivity increases first sub-linearly (~ V0 7) and then linearly with bias.
The knee at about 40 V for the 2-11m MSM and 10 V for the 0.6-f.lm MSM
corresponds to a transition from photovoltaic to photoconductive behavior
for which the contacts start to inject current. We note that the responsivity is

UV Metal Semiconductor Metal Detectors

87

much larger in the 0.6-flm MSM than in the 2-!lm one at the same bias, or
reaches a given responsivity value at a much lower bias.

4.2

IBICC Measurements

We now present experiments based on IBICC measurements on MSM fabricated on the same layer on Si(lll). IBICC measurements consist offocusing
a 2 MeV 4 He+ microbeam down to a 1 11m2 spot size with a low flux of less
than 400 ions per second. Ions are absorbed in the crystal and create about
105 electron-hole pairs per ion. One electrode (called anode) is grounded
while a negative bias is applied on the other electrode (cathode). For each
incident ion, a signal was obtained, with the pulse height proportional to the
number of collected charges. More details of the experimental procedure can
be found in Ref. 23. Figure 6 shows maps of collected charges at 75 V. In
Fig. 6 (left), we have selected the events that give rise to a small charge per
ion. We observe that these events are located at the edges of the anode. In
Fig. 6 (middle), we have selected the events that give rise to a large charge
per ion. These events are now located close to the cathode in the Schottky
depletion region. Regions in between fingers give rise to a moderate collection. The collection efficiency is given as a function of position for different
voltages from 0 to 75 V in Fig. 6 (right). On the anode edges, the collection
efficiency increases rapidly with bias up to 30 V, and then remains almost
independent of bias. On the cathode the collection efficiency is increasing
with bias, and is almost flat below the electrode. As far as the region between the electrodes is concerned, the decrease of the current when moving
away from the cathode presents an attenuation length of 5 f.tm. It is a typical
length for minority carriers already found on EBIC measurements [24].

20

..,rJ

IS

"':..

10

'a

Ill

IS

20

d (p .. )

Figure 6. IBICC response at anode (left) and cathode (middle). Response is plotted versus
bias on the right-hand side.

JO

88

J- L. Reverchon et al

Some precautions have to be taken before extending these IBICC results to

UV MSM detectors. For instance, the detector is uniformly illuminated by
photons whereas the beam is focused in 1 Jlm2 Nevertheless, we can think
that below the cathode, carriers are created in the depletion region so that
holes are easily collected even at low bias. Electrons drift towards the anode
where they are collected after the screening of the build-up field of the
Schottky diode.

4.3

Electric Field Calculation

In order to explain these results, we performed a 2-dimensional calculation

of the applied electric field in the structure using a commercial 2-D solver
(Atlas-Silvaco ). Parameters used for this calculation are described elsewhere
[21]. Figure 5 (right) shows the distribution ofthe electric field in the direction perpendicular to fingers in the 2-Jlm and 0.6-Jlm MSMs for a bias of 15
V. The comparison clearly shows that the high field region extends through
the whole spacing between fingers in the 0.6-Jlm MSM whereas it remains
confined to the electrode edge in the 2-Jlm MSM. It also shows that the vertical extension of the high field region is reduced when the spacing between
fingers is reduced. The calculated field distribution thus explains the larger
response and the reduced coupling to the GaN layer when the spacing is limited.
In order to calculate the response value from the field distribution, we
made the assumption that electron-hole pairs are collected in high-field regions only. The high-field criterion was the following: (Al,Ga)N alloys show
some localization with a typical energy of 50 me V on a spatial scale of 50
nm [21, 25]. Then, a field higher than 10 kV/cm is needed to collect carriers.
For a front side illumination, photons above band edge are absorbed in the
first 0.2 Jlm, and the volume of the high-field region is just proportional to
the lateral extension of the high-field region beside fingers that are not transparent to UV. Because of a slight dependence on the structure parameters
such as doping or finger spacing, or on the field value used to define the high
field region, the response depends on bias as vr with yin the range of 0.65 to
0.72. The inset of Fig. 5 shows the calculated response as a function of bias
for both MSM. It varies as V0 7, and the absolute value is close to the measured one up to biases where internal gain starts to appear. This variation is
intermediate between the extension of the depletion region in a vertical
Schottky diode (r= 0.5) and the linear response (y= 1) of a photoconductor
with an uniform field assumed.
We describe IBICC results with the same kind of hypotheses and simulations as those previously used. Incident ions are absorbed in the (Al,Ga)N

89

UV Metal Semiconductor Metal Detectors

layer on a scale that is larger than the layer thickness, so that we can consider that the electron-hole pair generation is uniform in the vertical direction. Electrons and holes are efficiently separated where the field is high
enough to overcome localization [21,23]. At the cathode, the high field separates carriers, and holes are all the more easily collected since the distance to
travel is small. Electrons are swept towards the anode, once the build-in field
of the Schottky diode is screened. When the bias increases, the high-field
region extends below the cathode and separates more and more electronhole pairs.

4.4

Conclusion for the Geometry of UV Detectors

From IBICC studies, we have shown that it is interesting to increase the

cathode area. As far as the region between the electrodes is concerned, submicronic studies have shown that spacing between the fingers must be as
short as possible. For example, we can see in Fig. 7(left) that the responsivity increases with cathode area for a constant area and spacing between the
fingers. We see also this tendency in Fig. 7 (right) with a larger responsivity
for a lower spacing and larger area.

~15

~ 20

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10

-~ 10

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!E
w 5

w 5

10
20
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30

10
20
Bias voltage (V)

30

Figure 7. Responsivity versus bias for different electrode area and spacing in MOCVD sample (left) and MBE sample (right).

5.

PERFORMANCES AND CONCLUSION

MSM detectors benefit from the large band-gap and Schottky barrier of high
quality undoped materials. The most impressive performance is the dark currents that are still in the femtoampere range at 35 V. We couldn't measure
noise in the best samples. Thus we estimated shot noise, Johnson noise and
1/f noise corresponding to this dark current. A conservative assumption for
1 5) shows that noise is dominated by shot
the' constant p of fJP/f noise ( 5 xo-

J- L. Reverchon et al

90

noise in the fA range. Then we obtain a detectivity of 4xl0 14 w- 1 with a

frame rate of 100 Hz. It corresponds to an equivalent power of 2.5 fW or 500
photons/second per pixel of 100 x 100 j.lm2 In our case, capacity is not
measured but may be estimated to 10 fF for 100 x 100 11m2 pixels. MSM are
also well suited to work at high frequency. Furthermore, we can stress the
advantage of (Al,Ga)N based devices which is the intrinsic selectivity between UV and visible close to five orders of magnitude. We notice that this
dynamics of UV/visible is obtained without any antireflection coating that
would improve both the peak responsivity and dynamics.
So, we have shown that MSM photodiodes present all of the desirable attributes of a flame detector: fabrication simplicity, robustness, large
UV/visible rejection, high sensitivity, high speed, low dark current, low
noise, high detectivity. Theses performances approach the ones of photomultipliers (PM) and the best cooled charge coupled devices (CCD). Now a
new challenge is to design a Readout Integrated Circuits capable of reading
1 fA with an optimal collection of carriers at 10 V. Risks of breakdown in
circuits designed on a small area are important. In a first time, it may be easier to find circuits for large linear array.
If we compare MSM to (Al,Ga)N-based Schottky or p-i-n photodiodes,
we observe that spectral selectivity of 4 orders of magnitude has been
achieved between UV and visible with an excellent detectivity [26,27,28,29].
The latter devices require a low voltage which is an advantage to adapt to
standard ROIC. On the contrary, it is more difficult to achieve dark currents
as low as those of MSM owing to the mesa processing and remaining material difficulties (dark current in the nA or pA range are typical). Consequently, different detectors may be adapted to different kinds of applications:
MSM for extremely low fluxes for which very low dark current is required
(fA), and Schottky or p-i-n photodiodes for larger ones (pA). In all cases,
the key reason for choosing (Al,Ga)N-based device would be the spectral
selectivity between UV and visible light.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was partially supported by DGA (contract N 00-34-068). One
author (MM) wishes to acknowledge financial support from a Curie Research Grant (G5TR-CT-2001-00064). Thanks are due to R. Me Kinnon
(NRC) for numerical simulations and ONERA for technical support.

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91

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