Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: Solar-blind ultraviolet photodetectors (SBPDs) have attracted tremendous attention in the environmental, industrial, military, and biological fields.Aluminum gallium nitride (AlGaN), a kind of representative III-nitride semiconductor, has promising prospects in solar-blind photodetection owing to its tunable wide bandgap and industrial feasibility.Considering the high defect density in the AlGaN epilayer directly grown on a sapphire substrate, employing an AlN/sapphire template turns out to be an effective method to achieve a high-quality AlGaN epilayer, thereby enhancing the SBPD performances.In recent years, a variety of remarkable breakthroughs have been achieved in the SBPDs.In this paper, the progress on photovoltaic AlGaN-based SBPDs is reviewed.First, the basic physical properties of AlGaN are introduced.Then, fabrication methods and defect annihilation of the AlN/sapphire template are discussed.Various photovoltaic SBPDs are further summarized, including Schottky barrier, metal-semiconductor-metal, p-n/p-i-n and avalanche photodiodes.Furthermore, surface modification and photoelectrochemical cell techniques are introduced.Benefitting from the development of fabrication techniques and optoelectronic devices, photovoltaic AlGaN photodiodes exhibit a promising prospect in solar-blind ultraviolet photodetection.
Source: Chinese Optics Letters
Authors: Xu Liu, Shengjun Zhou
Institution: Wuhan University
Language: English
Subfield: Condensed Matter Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4291008677