Characteristics of a Four-Terminal Dual-Emitter Heterojunction Phototransistor with a Base Current Bias

Abstract

This paper reports on a four-terminal dual-emitter heterojunction phototransistor (4T-DEPT) with a base biased by current source in comparison with a three-terminal dual-emitter heterojunction photoreansistor (3T-DEPT) without the additional current bias. While only voltage can be used to tune the optical performance of the 3T-DEPT, two kinds of operation modes, voltage- (VE21) and current- (IBdc) control modes, are considered for the 4T-DEPT. In addition to the power- and voltage-tunable optical gains, current-tunable one is also available in the 4T-DEPT operation. When the 4T-DEPT operates under the incident optical power (Pin) of 0.423 μW, it shows the maximum current-dependent gain-tuning efficiency of 62.66 μA-1 at VE21 = 0.06 V and IBdc = 0.001 μA. However, it is only 45.03 V-1 for the maximum voltage-dependent gain-tuning efficiency at VE21 = 0.06 V and IBdc = 0.25 μA.