Design and simulation of Mg2Si/Si avalanche photodiode

Abstract

InGaAs and HgCdTe materials are widely used in short wave infrared photodetectors, which contain heavy metal elements. The massive use of the heavy metal elements naturally results in their scarcity, and the nonnegligible environmental pollution. Searching for other suitable materials for infrared devices becomes a key to solving the above problems. As a kind of abundant and eco-friendly material, Mg₂Si has a high absorption coefficient in the near-infrared band. Its application in infrared detector makes it possible to replace the infrared devices containing toxic elements on the market in the future. The Mg₂Si/Si avalanche photodiode(APD) with separation structure of absorption layer, charge layer and multiplication layer, with Mg₂Si serving as the absorption layer, is constructed by using the Atlas module in Silvaco software. The effects of the thickness and doping concentration of the charge layer and multiplier layer on the distribution of internal electric field, punch-through voltage, breakdown voltage (<i>V</i>_b), <i>C-</i><i>V</i> characteristics, and transient response of Mg₂Si/Si SACM-APD are simulated. The effects of bias voltage on the <i>I-</i><i>V</i> characteristics and spectral response are analyzed. The punch-through voltage, breakdown voltage, dark current density, gain coefficient (<i>M</i><i>_n</i>) and the current amplification factor (<i>M</i>) after avalanche effect of APD are obtained after the structure optimization. According to the simulation results, the spectral response wavelength of the device is extended to 1.6 μm, so the selection of Mg₂Si as the absorption layer effectively extends the spectral response band of Si based APD. When the wavelength of incident light is 1.31 µm and the optical power is 10 mW/cm², the obtained punch-through voltage is 17.5 V, and the breakdown voltage is 50 V. When the bias voltage is 47.5 V (0.95<i>V</i>_b), the peak value of spectral response is 25 A/W at a wavelength of 1.1 μm, a density of dark current is about 3.6 × 10^–5 A/cm², a multiplication factor <i>M</i><i>_n</i> is 19.6, and <i>M</i><i>_n</i> achieves a maximum value of 102 when the device is broken down. Meanwhile, the current amplification factor <i>M</i> after avalanche effect is 75.4, and the current gain effect of the SACM structure is obvious. The peak value of spectral response for the pin-type photodiode in the previous study is only 0.742 A/W. Comparing with the pin-type photodiode, the spectral response of Mg₂Si/Si SACM-APD is greatly improved. In this work, the structure parameters of the device are optimized, which lays a nice foundation for fabricating the high-performance devices.