High-temperature operation of mid-infrared (/spl lambda/=4-5 /spl mu/m) vertical and lateral InAs/GaAs/AlGaAs quantum dot infrared photodetectors

Infrared (IR) detection has sundry applications from military targeting systems to the observation of stellar phenomena to professional photography. It is desirable to develop a high temperature IR photon detection technology, which would lend itself more readily to lightweight, compact, inexpensive IR cameras. Intersubband quantum dot infrared photodetectors (QDIPs) have great promise for providing high-temperature normal incidence operation in the mid- and far-infrared ranges due to the favorable dynamics of hot carriers in quantum dots. In this paper, we present state-of-the-art results on vertical and lateral mid-infrared (λ= 4-5 μm) InAs/GaAs/AlGaAs QDIPs. To our knowledge, the vertical detector we have characterized has the lowest reported dark current for such a device (I/sub dark-vertical/=125 nA at V/sub b/=0.5 V for T=100 K). The lateral detector, which also has an extremely low dark current ( I/sub dark-lateral/=27 pA at V/sub b/=0.5 V for T=100 K), also has one of the highest operating temperatures (100 K) to be reported for such a device.