Impact of residual doping on surface current of InGaAs/InP photodiode passivated with regrown InP

Abstract

The viability of epitaxial regrowth of non-intentionally doped InP to passivate lateral mesa surfaces of InGaAs photodiodes lattice-matched to InP is investigated, evaluating whether the residual doping of the regrown layer can be responsible for an unexpected increase of the surface current. The effect of residual doping is evaluated via numerical calculations of dark current, considering the range of doping concentrations expected for non-intentionally doped InP. The calculations show that the increase in dark current due to the residual doping of the regrown InP layer is not enough to justify the observed increase in surface current. On the other hand, the technique is still valid as a passivation method if the photodetector pixel is isolated by etching only the top contact layer.