Current Kink and Capacitance Frequency Dispersion in Silicon PIN Photodiodes

Abstract

Silicon PIN photodiodes in the visible wavelength range have been widely applied in aerospace, defense, security, medical, and scientific instruments because of their high sensitivity and low cost. In this paper, the phenomena of the current kink and the capacitance frequency dispersion are observed. Contamination at the p-type Ohmic contact interface is proposed to explain the current kink effect and capacitance frequency dispersion, according to the temperature-dependent I-V measurement results in which trap-assisted tunneling process demonstrated.

Keywords

• Silicon PIN photodiodes
• current kink
• capacitance frequency dispersion
• trap-assisted tunneling