Germanium avalanche diodes with statistically independent microplasma pulses have been successfully used as very sensitive photon counters at 77°K and at photon energies near 0.8 eV. The dark pulse rate at low temperatures was found to be limited by band-to-band tunnelling of carriers, and at high temperatures by thermal generation of minority carriers. Tunnel-assisted absorption was observed at energies slightly smaller than the band gap.
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Haecker et al. (1971) studied this question.
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