High quantum efficiency ultraviolet/blue AlGaN/InGaN photocathodes grown by molecular-beam epitaxy

Enormous technological breakthroughs have been made in optoelectronic devices through the use of advanced heteroepitaxial-semiconductor crystal-growth techniques. This technology is being extended toward enhanced ultraviolet/blue single-photon detection through the design and fabrication of atomically tailored heteroepitaxial GaAlN/GaInN photocathode device structures. The AlGaN/InGaN system is ideal because the band gap can be tailored over an energy range from 0.8 to 6.2 eV and epitaxial thin-film layers can be grown directly on optically transparent sapphire substrates. Although a single p-type GaN layer activated with cesium can produce reasonably high quantum efficiency in the ultraviolet wave band, a more complex design is necessary to achieve high levels extending into the blue region. In the present work, band-gap engineering concepts have been utilized to design heterostructure photocathodes. The increased level of sophistication offered by this approach has been exploited in an attempt to precisely control photoelectron transport to the photocathode surface. Thin heterostructure layers designed for transmission-mode detection were fabricated by molecular-beam epitaxy. A quantum efficiency of 40% at 250 nm was achieved using a thin, compositionally graded GaN/InGaN layer, epitaxially grown on a sapphire substrate. Further improvements are anticipated through continued optimization, defect reduction, and more complex photocathode designs. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.