Impact of field-enhanced band-traps-band tunneling on the dark current generation in germanium p-i-n photodetector

This letter investigates the impact of field-enhanced band-traps-band tunneling on the dark current generation in germanium (Ge) p-i-n photodetector. We show that the existence of defect-induced traps within the forbidden gap forms the underlying leakage mechanism. Enhancing the electric field intensity is found to reduce the activation energy that governs the leakage generation rates. In the presence of enlarged band-bending, the dark current generation is further aggravated by the enhancement in electrons and holes tunneling from the resulting deep levels into the conduction and valence bands, respectively. Such field-enhanced band tunneling effect becomes increasingly prominent with a downsizing of the detector’s depletion width, which imposes a design trade-off between leakage generation and bandwidth enhancement.