The uncooled InGaAs-based infrared detector has received great interest in recent years for its application in optical-fiber
communication and remote sensing. However, the improvement of device performance is hampered by the lack of
feasible method to monitor its device process. The Microwave Photoconductivity Decay (μ-PCD) technique is a
contactless and non-destructive technique of the recombination lifetime characterization and mapping and has found
wide application in semiconductor research. In this paper, a double heterojunction p-i-n InP/In0.53Ga0.47As/InP mesa
structure was fabricated by Ar+ ion etching and the μ-PCD technique was applied to characterize the electrical effects of
ion etching on this structure. The results revealed that the built-in field in the p-n junction played a critical role in
recombination of photo induced minority carriers which made the mesa structure identifiable but not identical with the
lifetime mapping of the sample. The recombination lifetime in the mesa was dominated by the recombination process in
the edge of the mesa. The lifetime in the etched region was also influenced by the built-in field and increased with the
decrease of distance to the mesa area. And ion etching brought great nonuniformity to the photo active cells.
We found that the contact resistance of Au/Pt/Ti on p-InP increases with the increase of annealing time and annealing
temperature. Au/Pt/Ti is ohmic contact metal as deposited with specific contact resistance of 2.49×10-3 Ωcm2 when p-InP
doped by 7.5×1018 cm-3 and is Schottky contact when doped by 2×1018 cm-3. Surface morphologies of Au/Pt/Ti after rapid
thermal processing (RTP) were analyzed by atom force microscopy (AFM). An interface layer dominated by TiIn
compound, which increase the specific contact resistance, was found in Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) analysis.
P-InP and n-InP ohmic contacts can be achieved at the same time as deposited when added p-In0.53Ga0.47As layer on
p-InP/InGaAs/n-InP without annealing.
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