Impact of the defects on the electrical and optical properties of AlGaN ultraviolet photodetectors

Studies carried out on gallium nitride showed that they have a high defect density in their band gap. These defects have direct influence on the electrical characteristics of the devices, by contributing leakage currents and the trap assisted tunnel currents. In this article, we carried out numerical calculations based on the experimental data, in order to study the contribution of each component of the current. A comparison has been made between the devices based on GaN and on AlGaN. We study also the capacitance-frequency characteristics, which enable us to locate defects in the band gap. We discuss the effect of the series resistance on the current-voltage characteristics, as well as the influence of defects on the photodetector response time and on the rejection ratio. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.