Photovoltaic operation up to 270 K of a strain-compensated AlAs/In0.84Ga0.16As/AlAs/InAlAs quantum well infrared photodetector -: art. no. 192113

We report operation up to 270 K of a strain-compensated AlAs/In0.84Ga0.16As/AlAs/In0.52Al0.48As double barrier quantum well infrared photodetector, grown on an InP substrate. The n=1 to n=2 intersubband transition gives a peak detection wavelength of 2.09 mu m at 77 K which is in good agreement with the calculated value for a 3 nm quantum well. The conduction band discontinuity between In0.52Al0.48As and In0.84Ga0.16As is calculated to be 0.675 eV, which offers the possibility of room temperature operation for optimized detectors. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.