Performance of quantum wire infrared photodetectors under illumination conditions

The aim of this manuscript is to study a performance of quantum wire infrared photodetectors (QRIPs) in the case of impinging by infrared (IR) radiations, Photocurrent will be induced as a result of these IR radiations. Although the analytical solution of the QRIPs is not trivial work, exact solutions are obtained for each of photocurrent and its corresponding figure-of-merit, responsivity. The main concern is to discuss the influence of QRIPs parameters on the characteristics of photocurrent. The QRIPs parameters are average quantum wire density, the transverse and lateral size, operating temperature, and the number of quantum wire layers. Moreover, comparison study with the quantum well (dot) infrared photodetectors (QWIPs and QDIPs, respectively) is discussed. From the numerical results, one can notice that the QRIPs give gradually increasing photocurrent. While in another case, QDIPS, illustrates rapidly increasing values of the photocurrent within all the period of photocurrent. Although the photocurrent is smaller than its analogous QDIPs at the initial values of biasing voltage, the QRIPs photocurrent is controllable and more sensitive to the changing of device parameters. The main strength of the QRIPs is that the induced photocurrent is larger than dark current by a factor ranged from more than thousands, at low temperature, to ten at high temperature. So, the derived QRIPs responsivity gives actual value of the IR sensitivity. By utilizing QRIPs array, the obtained responsivity will be suitable for IR detections. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.