Comparative Study of Silicon-Based Ultraviolet Photodetectors

This review article presents a comparative study of different silicon-based ultraviolet (UV) photodetector technologies. After a brief introduction and classification of UV photodetectors, a general comparison is made between the two most popular UV-detector solid-state materials: silicon and wideband gap semiconductors (diamond, SiC, III-nitrides, and some III-V compounds). Particularly, the advantages of the Si-based technologies are discussed. Further in this paper, the analyses are restricted to silicon UV photodetectors. The theoretically attainable sensitivity in the UV spectral range of Si-based photodetectors is discussed. Different device structures and their working principle are shortly reviewed, followed by a comparison of the state-of-the-art Si-based UV photodetectors. By linking the device structure to the reported optical performance, the advantages and drawbacks of different structures are detailed. Finally, a number of key factors for designing high performance Si-based photodetectors are proposed.