Extended-SWIR High-Speed All-GeSn PIN Photodetectors on Silicon

Abstract: There is an increasing need for silicon-compatible high bandwidth extended-short wave infrared (e-SWIR) photodetectors (PDs) to implement cost-effective and scalable optoelectronic devices. These systems are quintessential to address several technological bottlenecks in detection and ranging, surveillance, ultrafast spectroscopy, and imaging. In fact, current e-SWIR high bandwidth PDs are predominantly made of III-V compound semiconductors and thus are costly and suffer a limited integration on silicon besides a low responsivity at wavelengths exceeding $2.3 \,\mu$m. To circumvent these challenges, Ge${1-x}$Sn${x}$ semiconductors have been proposed as building blocks for silicon-integrated high-speed e-SWIR devices. Herein, this study demonstrates a vertical all-GeSn PIN PDs consisting of p-Ge${0.92}$Sn${0.08}$/i-Ge${0.91}$Sn${0.09}$/n-Ge${0.89}$Sn${0.11}$ and p-Ge${0.91}$Sn${0.09}$/i-Ge${0.88}$Sn${0.12}$/n-Ge${0.87}$Sn${0.13}$ heterostructures grown on silicon following a step-graded temperature-controlled epitaxy protocol. The performance of these PDs was investigated as a function of the device diameter in the $10-30 \,\mu$m range. The developed PD devices yield a high bandwidth of 12.4 GHz at a bias of 5V for a device diameter of $10 \,\mu$m. Moreover, these devices show a high responsivity of 0.24 A/W, a low noise, and a $2.8 \,\mu$m cutoff wavelength thus covering the whole e-SWIR range.