16.5 μm quantum cascade detector using miniband transport

The authors report on an InP based photovoltaic quantum cascade detector operating at 16.5 mu m and using miniband-based vertical transport. This concept allowed the construction of a longitudinal optical phonon extraction stair with two rungs without touching on a high device resistance. At 10 K, they observed a responsivity of 1.72 mA/W and a Johnson noise limited detectivity of 2.2x10(9) Jones. Altogether, this design resulted in detection at temperatures of up to 90 K with a lower bandwidth limit of 200 MHz imposed by the measurement setup. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.