AlN MSM and Schottky photodetectors

Deep ultraviolet (DUV) AlN Metal‐Semiconductor‐Metal (MSM) and Schottky barrier photodetectors have been demonstrated by exploiting the epitaxial growth of high quality AlN epilayer on sapphire and n‐SiC substrates, respectively. The fabricated photodetectors exhibited peak responsivity at 200 nm with very sharp cut‐off wavelength at 207 nm along with extremely low dark current, very high breakdown voltages, high responsivity and high DUV to UV/visible rejection ratio. AlN Schottky barrier detectors show high zero bias responsivity and very high thermal energy limited detectivity at zero bias. These outstanding features are direct attributes of the fundamental material properties and high quality of AlN epilayers. These results demonstrated that AlN could be an excellent candidate as an active material for next generation DUV opto‐electronic device applications. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)