The terahertz (THz) and mid-infrared (MIR) spectral regions have many potential applications in the industrial, biomedical, and military sectors. Yet, a wide portion of this region of the electromagnetic spectrum (particularly the THz range) is still relatively unexplored, due mainly to the absence of suitable sources and photodetectors, related to the lack of practical semiconductor materials with adequately small band gap energies. Intersubband transitions (ISBTs) between quantized energy states in quantum heterostructures provide tunable wavelengths over a broad spectral range including the THz region, by choosing appropriate layer thicknesses and compositions.
This work focuses on the development of THz and MIR Quantum Well Infrared Photodetectors (QWIPs) based on ISBTs in GaN/AlGaN and Si/SiGe heterostructures. Due to their large optical phonon energies, GaN materials allow extending the spectral reach of existing far-infrared photodetectors based on GaAs, and may enable higher-temperature operation. In the area of MIR optoelectronic devices, I have focused on developing QWIPs based on ISBTs in Si/SiGe heterostructures in the form of on strain-engineered nanomembranes. Due to their non-polar nature, these materials are free from reststrahlen absorption and ultrafast resonant electron/phonon scattering, unlike traditional III-V semiconductors. Therefore, Si/SiGe quantum wells (QWs) are also promising candidates for high-temperature high-performance ISB device operation (particularly in the THz region), with the additional advantage of direct integration with CMOS technology.
In this thesis work, numerical modeling is used to design the active region of the proposed devices, followed by sample fabrication and characterization based on lock-in step-scan Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Three specific QWIP devices have been developed. The first is a III-nitride THz QWIP based on a novel double-step QW design in order to alleviate the material limitations provided by the intrinsic electric fields of GaN/AlGaN heterostructures. Next, I have developed a THz GaN/AlGaN QWIP grown on semi-polar (202 ̅1 ̅) GaN, where the detrimental effects of the internal fields are almost completely eliminated. Finally, I have demonstrated a Si/SiGe MIR QWIP based on a novel fabrication approach, where nanomembrane strain engineering is used to address the materials quality issues normally found in SiGe QWs. Promising photodetector performance is obtained in all cases. / 2017-06-21T00:00:00Z
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/17077 |
| Date | 21 June 2016 |
| Creators | Durmaz, Habibe |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ |
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