Quantum-well infrared photodetector structure synthesis: methodology and experimental verification

A numerical method for global optimization of quantum-well infrared photodetector (QWIP) performance parameters is presented and experimentally verified. The single-band effective-mass Schroedinger equation is solved by employing the argument principle method (APM) to extract both the bound and quasibound eigen-energies of the quantum heterostructure. APM is combined with a simulated annealing algorithm to determine a set of device design parameters such as potential barrier height V_i, layer thickness d_i, number of material layers N, total device length, applied bias V_Bias etc., for which the QWIP performance is within a predetermined convergence criterion. The method presented incorporates the effect of energy-dependent effective mass of electrons in nonparabolic conduction bands. The present model can handle many optimization parameters and can incorporate fabrication constraints to achieve physically realizable devices. In addition, the method is not limited to the optimization of absorption structures, and can be used for other intersubband devices such as electron-wave Fabry-Perot filters and quantum-cascade lasers. The strength and versatility of the present method are demonstrated by the design of a bicolor equal-absorption-peak QWIP structure, and experimental verification of the zero-bias absorption spectrum is presented.