Energy efficient 1-transistor active pixel sensor (APS) with FD SOI tunnel FET

This paper presents the first energy efficient highly compact concept of active pixel sensor built with a single partially-gated tunnel FET (TFET). Experimental results show that the transistor characteristics of the investigated TFETs are nonlinearly modulated by optical excitation and a transistor gain that is a function of irradiance and bias conditions is reported for the first time. A memory effect is observed and exploited when the backgate is used as a secondary gate to control charge storing mechanism in the body, similarly to backside illuminated pixels. Compared to CMOS, 1T-TFET pixel offers high sensitivity (detection limit <; 2pW/μm² in visible light), low power operation, improved temperature stability (validation at 70°C) and high compactness (1T architecture with pixel size of ~10×1μm² in this work).