P02 2025 International Image Sensor Workshop

Mid-infrared Detection using Black Phosphorus

on Silicon Heterostructure with Avalanche
Multiplication
Yen-Ju Lin†1,2, Chien-Yu Chen†2, Chang-Hua Liu†1, Neil Na†2
†1
Institution of Photonics Technology, National Tsing-Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
†2
Artilux Inc., Hsinchu, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
E-mail: changhua@[Link] and neil@[Link]

ABSTRACT
An analytical method is proposed to design high-
responsivity and high-speed mid-infrared (MIR) detection
device with avalanche multiplication. In this work, a
separated absorption, charge, and multiplication avalanche
photodiode (SACM APD) using bulk black phosphorus-on-
silicon (bBP-on-Si) heterostructure is calculated and
simulated with punch-through near 10V and breakdown near
20V. This work reaches 1000x bandwidth improvement and
high gain-bandwidth product up to 128 GHz with high
responsivity as 2.75 A/W comparing with other two-
dimension materials (2DM) on silicon heterostructures.
Keywords: mid-infrared, APD, 2D materials, black
phosphorus
I. INTRODUCTION
Recently, two-dimension materials used for photo-
detection have attracted wide attention due to the broad
operation wavelengths and the flexible fabrication methods.
Extending detection range to MIR allows various applications
that require fast response, e.g. molecule detection in
biomedical sensing, thermal imaging, environmental
monitoring, and free-space communication. Previous works
have reported the possibility of designing and fabricating
photo-detecting devices using 2DM through various working
mechanisms and material combinations [1,2]. As an example,
bulk black phosphorus (bBP), a narrow bandgap 2DM, has
been demonstrated to be a promising MIR photodetector by
Guo [3] and Chen [4].
For MIR sensing and imaging, researchers are mainly
focusing on enhancing the responsivity. However, low
bandwidth is a tradeoff for acquiring a high responsivity Fig 1. (a) Schematic plot of the device. (b) Band structure of
through either thicker 2DM or photogating effect, which may the device in equilibrium using Au as contact on AL.
limit the range of applications. In this work, we propose bBP-
on-Si for implementing separate absorption, charge, and
AL with 200 nm thickness in this case. Multiplication layer
multiplication avalanche photodiode (SACM APD) [5], with
(ML) is the region where carriers been multiplicated. The
bBP as the absorption layer and Si as the multiplication layer.
The signal can be multiplied with avalanche gain without thickness of this layer determines breakdown and punch-
trading the bandwidth, which may be a viable solution for through voltage and will be discussed in Section III. Contact
high-speed and high-responsivity MIR photodetector. is doped with high n-type concentration to form Ohmic
contact on Si. The electrical properties of bBP are set as
II. METHOD follow: band structure is 0.35 eV and dc permittivity are 12.5,
Considering bBP-Si heterostructure depicted in Fig. 1(a), 10.8 and 8.3 in unit of vacuum permittivity (ε0 ) along X, Y
we use bBP as both absorption layer (AL) with thickness and Z axis [6]; work function is 4.3eV [7]. To simplify the
equals to 20 nm. Charge layer (CL) is p-doped Si with 100 breakdown model, we consider electric field along Z axis
nm thickness. Between AL and CL, we add an optional only. The device is quasi-1D along Z axis without lateral field.
intrinsic Si as buffer layer (BL) for tuning high field inside With the simplification, the anisotropic mobility and
effective mass of bBP can be approximated to isotropic

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electrical properties along Z axis. In this case, mobilities are CL is exactly zero.
400 cm2 /V ∙ s and 540 cm2 /V ∙ s for electron and hole Since the electric field varies slowly inside ML, we
respectively and effective mass are 0.221 and 0.24 in unit of consider local breakdown model to evaluate breakdown
electron rest mass for electron and hole respectively [8]. voltage by the condition [9]
𝑡𝑀𝐿 𝑥
We use finite element method (FEM) simulation with 1 = ∫0 𝛼ℎ (𝑥)𝑒 − ∫0 (𝛼ℎ(𝑥′)−𝛼𝑒(𝑥′))𝑑𝑥′ 𝑑𝑥 , (1)
periodic boundary along X axis to derive electric field
where tML is the multiplication layer thickness of the device
distribution. The band structure in equilibrium along Z axis
and αe (αh ) are impact ionization coefficient of electron (hole)
as depicted in Fig. 1(b). For Si and 2DM contact, we use
depending on electric field [10]
aluminum with work function 4.26 eV to be N contact and
gold with work function 5.1 eV. Note that the contact on bBP 𝛼𝑒/ℎ (𝑥) = 𝐴𝑒/ℎ 𝑒 −(𝑏𝑒/ℎ/𝐸(𝑥)) 𝑑𝑥. (2)
requires large work function, i.e. larger than bBP’s work where Ae/h and be/h are ionization coefficients for electron
function, to form P contact as shown in Fig. 2(a). Metal or and hole respectively. To explicitly derive the gain and excess
other 2DM with small work function metal may form N noise factor, we calculate the McIntyre formula [11]
𝑡𝑀𝐿
contact for bBP-metal contact as Fig. 2(b) shows, which 𝑒 − ∫𝑥 (𝛼𝑒 (𝑥′)−𝛼ℎ (𝑥′))𝑑𝑥′

confirmed experimentally reported by Perello et al [7] with 𝑀(𝑥) = 𝑡𝑀𝐿 𝑡𝑀𝐿 , (3)
1−∫0 𝛼𝑒 (𝑥)𝑒 − ∫𝑥 (𝛼𝑒 (𝑥′)−𝛼ℎ (𝑥′))𝑑𝑥′
𝑑𝑥
aluminum contacts on black phosphorus. 1
To characterize our device, we define three voltages: (1) 𝐹(𝑥) = 𝑘𝑒𝑓𝑓 𝑀(𝑥) + (2 − )(1 − 𝑘𝑒𝑓𝑓 ), (4)
𝑀(𝑥)
unity gain (Vug), (2) punch though (Vpt) and (3) breakdown where k eff is the effective impact ionization coefficient ratio
(Vbr). The unity gain voltage is the bias where impact of hole to electron.
ionization gain starts to involve. We extract the light-on To evaluate the performance of the device, we calculate the
current of the device with and without CL, i.e. APD and small signal analysis and noise equivalent power (NEP) under
photodetector (PD) light-on current, and find the unity gain the bias where avalanche gain equals to 10. We apply a small
voltage where the light-on current is equal to unity gain voltage variation, e.g. 30 mV, onto N contact and extract
current derived from PD. The punch through voltage is the small signal response. The current will be complex and
bias where CL has been punched through, i.e. the field inside frequency dependent. NEP is defined as signal power
Si is purely positive from 2DM to Si contact. We scan the
electric field of APD along Z axis in different bias and
interpolate the voltage where electric field near top edge of

Fig 3. (a) Breakdown and (b) punch-through voltages of the

Fig 2. Zoomed in band structure in equilibrium with (a) gold SACM APD plotted as a function of ML thickness (tML) and
as P contact and (b) aluminum as N contact on bBP. CL concentration (dCL)

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Fig 4. (a) Light-off current (black) and light-on current (red) of the reference PD (solid line) and the APD (dotted line) plotted
as a function of reverse bias. (b) Responsivity of the reference PD and the APD plotted as a function of reverse bias. The
“QE=100%” line indicates the theoretical maximum responsivity of the reference PD at 3400 nm wavelength. (c) Small-signal
response of the APD plotted as a function of frequency given gain equal to 10. The “-3dB” line indicates the optical signal
dropping to half of its low-frequency value. (d) NEP of the APD plotted as a function of gain.

where signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) equals to 1 of a 1 Hz

bandwidth. III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
The SNR including avalanche gain and excess noise factor Through scanning the thickness of multiplication layer
as follow (ML) and the concentration of charge layer (CL), we can
𝑀𝐼𝑝ℎ
𝑆𝑁𝑅 = , (5) simulate the operating condition and the corresponding
2 +2𝑞(𝐼 +𝐼 2
√𝐼𝑇𝐼𝐴 𝑝ℎ 𝑑𝑘_𝑚 )𝑀 𝐹+2𝑞𝐼𝑑𝑘_𝑛 designs of ML and CL. The result design maps are shown in
𝐼𝑝ℎ (𝑆𝑁𝑅=1) Fig. 3. An arbitrarily targeted APD at 20V breakdown voltage
𝑁𝐸𝑃 = , (6) and 10V punch-through can be found with the ML thickness
𝑅(𝑀=1)
where Iph , Idk_m and Idk_n are photo current, multiplied dark ~475nm and the CL concentration is 1.55e17 cm-3, the
current and non-multiplied dark current, respectively; q is resultant breakdown voltage is 20.065 V and the resultant
elementary charge; R is the unity gain responsivity. We punch-through voltage is 9.892 V. The APD current gain of
consider a relatively low speed transimpedance amplifier this specific design can be calculated and it reaches 10 when
(TIA), e.g. MAX40213 from Maxim Integrated, with bias at ~18.8V.
1.1 pA/√Hz for ITIA in Eq. 5. As shown by the I-V curves in Fig. 4(a), due to the large
For gain device, gain-bandwidth product (GBP) is used to dark current from bBP, it is hard to identify the photocurrent
evaluate the bandwidth with certain gain. The GBP can be of the reference photodiode (PD) and the APD when we apply
determined by Emmon’s formula [12], a light source at 3400 nm wavelength and 1 nW/µm2 intensity
𝑀 to our device. Instead, we plot the responsivity of the
𝑀(𝜔) = , (7)
2
√1+𝜔2 𝑀2 (𝑁𝑘𝑒𝑓𝑓 𝜏) reference PD, which is around 0.01 A/W, and the responsivity
of the APD, which can reach as high as 2.75 A/W near the
where N is a number varying from 1/3 to 2 as k eff varies from breakdown voltage, in Fig. 4(b).
1 to 0.001. τ is the transit time in the ML. Fig. 4(c) shows that a high small-signal-bandwidth up to
2.5 GHz can be obtained when APD operated at current gain
equal to 10. The bandwidth is 1000 times larger than the other

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IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we have concept-wise demonstrated MIR
detector using bBP-on-Si heterostructure. The characteristics
of bBP are discussed and modeled. Through avalanche
multiplication, the proposed bBP-on-Si heterostructure APD
responsivity can be up to theoretical maximum with high
GBP of 128.4 GHz, which expands the possibility of high-
speed MIR applications, such as optical communication and
time-of-flight depth image sensing.
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