Designing high electron mobility transistor heterostructures with quantum dots for efficient, number-resolving photon detection

Published

May 1, 2008

Author(s)

Mary A. Rowe, Eric Gansen, M. Greene, Danna Rosenberg, Todd E. Harvey, Mark Su, Robert Hadfield, Sae Woo Nam, Richard P. Mirin

Abstract

We describe the design of the epitaxial layers for an efficient, photon-number-determining detector that utilizes a layer of self-assembled quantum dots as an optically addressable gate in a field-effect transistor. Our design features a dedicated absorption layer where photoexcited holes are produced and directed with tailored electric fields to the quantum dots. A barrier layer ensures that the quantum dot layer is located at a two-dimensional potential minimum of the structure for the efficient collection of holes. Using quantum dots as charge traps allows us to contain the photoexcited holes in a well-defined plane. We derive an equation for a uniform size of the photon signal based on this precise geometry. Finally, we show corroborating data with well-resolved signals corresponding to different numbers of photons.

Citation

Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology B

Volume

26

Issue

(3)

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

HEMT heterostuctures, photon number-determining detection, quantum dots, single photon detection

Citation

Rowe, M. , Gansen, E. , Greene, M. , Rosenberg, D. , Harvey, T. , Su, M. , Hadfield, R. , Nam, S. and Mirin, R. (2008), Designing high electron mobility transistor heterostructures with quantum dots for efficient, number-resolving photon detection, Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology B, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=32807 (Accessed November 6, 2025)