Abstract

The ultimate limit of the sensitivity of a photodetector can be expressed by its normalized detectivity as [1]: $D^{*}=\frac{\lambda }{hc}\sqrt{\frac{A_o}{A_e}\eta \sqrt{\frac{1}{2\left(G+R\right)t},}}$ where for a given optimized detector material and thickness, the ratio of optical to electronic area of the detector, A_o/A_e is a crucial parameter for the detector performance. By leveraging the degree of freedom intrinsic to this ratio, Electron Injector (EI) technology has proven capable of surpassing the current performance of commercial short-wave infrared (SWIR) cameras [2]. Unlike conventional photon detectors and imagers, which are based on planar sensing elements made of a stack of semiconductors, EI uses low-dimensional charge confinement in a 3D structure to achieve highly sensitive photon detection.

© 2019 IEEE