Improvement of responsivity of high-speed infrared detector using hot carriers in semiconductors

A room temperature, high-speed and high-sensitive infrared hot carrier detector using p-type Ge has been investigated at 10.6 μm. The detector is composed of a whisker antenna and a diode contact forming an ohmic contact on p-type Ge. This detector has the merit that one can easily have impedance matching between the antenna and the diode contact without any matching section, so that high sensitivity can be obtained. A voltage sensitivity 16 dB higher than that of metal-insulator-metal (MIM) point contact diode has been observed from this detector.