Impact of thermal annealing on nonequilibrium carrier dynamics in single-crystal, freestanding GaAs mesostructures

We report on the impact of thermal annealing to carrier transport and transient, subpicosecond photoresponse of freestanding GaAs mesostructures. Our measurements included micro-photoluminescence and dark current and responsivity studies as well as optical femtosecond characterization. The fabricated GaAs mesostructures consisted of both mesowires and platelets that were integrated into coplanar striplines to form a photoconductive switch. We demonstrate that an optimized annealing process of our mesostructures, performed at 600 ◦C for 20 min, led to restoring bulklike properties of our freestanding devices. They exhibited dark currents below 600 pA at 10 V bias, responsivity of 0.2 A W−1 at 30 V, and mobility as high as 7300 cm2 V s−1. The annealed freestanding GaAs photodetectors were characterized by subpicosecond carrier relaxation dynamics with negligible trapping and a cutoff frequency of 1.3 THz. The latter characteristics make them excellent candidates for THz-bandwidth optoelectronics.