Investigation of Infrared Silicon-Organic Photodetectors

Abstract

Silicon-organic hybrid photodetectors (HPD)could be considered as a replacement for expensive low-bandgap photodetectors, thanks to their low-cost fabrication process and the possibility to realize large surface and also large array of photodetectors which is advantageous for wireless optical communications. In silicon-organic HPDs, the light absorption occurs effectively at the heterojunction interface. The difference of energy levels at the silicon-organic heterojunction interface provides a valid energy state for hybrid charge transfer excitons and accordingly, the absorption at the interface is justified by excitonic absorption. We analyzed and modeled the infrared silicon-organic hybrid photodetectors in both dynamic and steady-state conditions. According to the results, a silicon organic HPD was designed with 175 MHz operating bandwidth which could be applicable in many optical wireless communication systems.