GaN p-i-n photodetectors with an LT-GaN interlayer

Nitride-based p-i-n ultraviolet (UV) photodetectors with a low-temperature (LT) GaN interlayer were proposed and fabricated. Compared with a conventional GaN p-i-n photodetector, it was found that both the dark current and ideality factor of the p-i-n photodetector with an LT-GaN interlayer became larger whereas the UV-to-visible rejection ratio became smaller because of the poor crystal quality of the LT-GaN interlayer. However, the responsivity of the GaN p-i-n photodetector with an LT-GaN interlayer was larger than that of the conventional GaN p-i-n photodetector under a high reverse bias because of the carrier multiplication effect and/or internal gain that originated from the defect levels.