Modelling of electronic transport in Quantum Well Infrared Photodetectors

Abstract: Our interest is to model the electronic transport in Quantum Well Infrared Photodetectors (QWIPs). Standard modelling was based on self-consistent calculation of the non-uniform electric field with empirical description of the electron capture (Thibaudeau et al., 1996 ). Realistic empirical parameters had to be extracted from experiment, consequently purely numerical studies were not possible. Moreover, this approach allowed only a qualitative description of transport phenomena. In order to get rid of adjustable parameters, we have changed for a modelling based on the microscopic description of the transport (Jovanović et al., 2004 ). We have applied this modelling to the design of a variety of QWIPs. For example, excellent agreement with experimental dark current–voltage curves for different sizes of the barriers is demonstrated on a 8μm detector over more than 6 orders of magnitude. The behaviour with respect to temperature on a wide range (30–200K) is also well reproduced on this device as well as on a 17μm detector. Those promising results confirm that this approach can give not only a good quantitative agreement but can also be a useful predictive tool. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]