Photoresponse of Long-Wavelength AlGaAs/GaAs Quantum Cascade Detectors

Abstract

We study the photoresponse and photocurrents of long-wavelength infrared quantum cascade detectors (QCDs) based on AlGaAs/GaAs material system. The photocurrent spectra were measured at different temperatures from 20 K to 100 K with a low noise Fourier transforming infrared spectrometer. The main response peak appeared at 8.9 μm while four additional response peaks from 4.5 μm to 10.1 μm were observed as well. We confirmed that the photocurrent comes from phonon assisted tunneling and the multipeak behavior comes from the complicated optical transition in the quantum cascade structure. This work is valuable for the future design and optimization of QCD devices.