A novel composite UV/blue photodetector based on CMOS technology: design and simulation

Abstract

A novel composite ultraviolet (UV)/blue photodetector is proposed in this paper. Lateral ring-shaped PN junction is used to separate photogenerated carriers and inject the non-equilibrium excess carriers to the bulk, changing the bulk potential and shifting the threshold voltage of the metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) as well as the drain current. Numerical simulation is carried out, and the simulation results show that the composite photodetector has the enhanced responsivity for UV/blue spectrum. It exhibits very high sensitivity to weak and especially ultra-weak light. A responsivity of 7000 A/W is obtained when the photodetector is illuminated under incident optical power of 0.01 μW. As a result, this proposed combined photodetector has great potential for UV/blue and ultra-weak light applications.

Keywords

Threshold Voltage / Gate Voltage / Versus Versus Versus / Drain Current / Photogenerated Carrier

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This work has been supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos.61233010 and 61274043), and the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University of Ministry of Education of China (No.NCET-11-0975).