Japanese Journal of Applied Physics

Vol. 43, No. 6B, 2004, pp. 3916–3918

#2004 The Japan Society of Applied Physics

A Low-Power Silicon-on-Insulator Photodetector

with a Nanometer-Scale Wire for Highly Integrated Circuit
Hong Goo C HOI
, Yeon-Shik CHOI, Young Chang J O and Hoon K IM
Nanoscale Quantum Device Research Center, Korea Electronics Technology Institute,
#455-6 MaSan-Ri, JinWi-Myon, PyungTaek-Si, KyungGi-Do 451-865, Korea
(Received October 30, 2003; accepted February 11, 2004; published June 29, 2004)

A highly sensitive photodetector, which is fabricated on a silicon-on-insulator metal oxide semiconductor field-effect
transistor (SOI MOSFET) with a nanometer-scale wire, is proposed and optical responses are studied. Experimental results
show that our device has a responsivity of 36 A/W, which is significantly higher than that of the conventional SOI MOSFET,
and a significantly lower dark current. Interestingly, the photodetector with wire also shows pseudo kinks in a fully depleted
type. We consider that these phenomena are affected by the wire, and the physical mechanism of the operation of our
photodetector is explained by a strong lateral bipolar action. The linearity with optical power and spectral response in the
visual spectral range are presented. Our device can be easily downscaled below 0.1 mm without the loss of sensitivity and the
increase in dark current. [DOI: 10.1143/JJAP.43.3916]
KEYWORDS: SOI, MOSFET, photodetector, mechanism, image sensor, responsivity

1. Introduction
Silicon photodetectors are of considerable importance as
image processing units. Compared with compound photo- Polysilicon
detectors, silicon photodetectors have great advantages such
as simple layout, technology compatibility and integration
with other circuitries at a lower cost. There have been Source
studies on the image sensor1) and the characteristics of the
silicon-on-insulator metal oxide semiconductor field-effect
transistor (SOI MOSFET) itself as a photodetector.2–4)
However, there are still problems such as an extra-large
sensitive photodetector must be attached2) or a new small
Silicon
photodetector has to be developed in order to miniaturize the
image sensor.3)
In this paper, a new SOI MOSFET photodetector with a Wire
Drain
nanometer-scale wire is described. It utilizes the narrow-
channel effect and the lateral bipolar action.4) As a result, a Buried Oxide
significantly higher responsivity beyond that of the conven-
tional SOI MOSFET has been achieved. This device has
Silicon
advantages in terms of high sensitivity, easy integration and
low voltage operation below 1 V.
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the fabricated SOI MOSFET with a
nanometer-scale wire where gate oxide and metal lines are omitted for
2. Device Fabrication
clarity.
The schematic diagram of the fabricated device with a
nanometer-scale wire is shown in Fig. 1.5) SOI MOSFETs
used in the experiments were fabricated using p-type h100i with 1% Si was used as a metal electrode after contact
separation by implanted oxygen (SIMOX) wafers with a top window opening. A patterned metal electrode was annealed
silicon layer thickness of 190 nm. The buried oxide was at 450 C in a forming gas. The above processing description
400 nm thick. The thickness of top silicon surface was finally shows that the processes after gate oxidation are not
reduced to 50 nm by thermal oxidation because vertical optimized for photodetectors and just follow the conven-
confinement is required to fabricate a one-dimensional wire. tional MOSFET fabrication process to compare the narrow-
After mesa isolation, electron beam lithography was used to channel SOI MOSFET with the conventional one. The
obtain the wire with a width and length of 100 nm. Then, a fabricated SOI MOSFETs were of a fully depleted type and
40 nm-thick gate oxide was grown and a 350-nm-thick the characteristics of the devices were measured in the dark
polysilicon gate was deposited. Phosphorous (P) 5:0  at room temperature. Optical characteristics were measured
1015 cm2 at 60 keV was implanted into the source, drain, using a He-Ne laser (wavelength = 632.8 nm).
and gate electrode in a single step after polysilicon was
patterned. They were activated by nitrogen annealing at 3. Experimental Results
950 C. Finally, 400-nm-thick chemical vapor deposition First, a conventional SOI MOSFET without the wire as
(CVD) oxide was deposited and 700-nm-thick aluminum photodetector is measured. Both channel width, W, and
channel length, L, are 10 mm. The photocurrents from


E-mail address: hgc@keti.re.kr various illumination intensities are shown in Fig. 2(a). At
3916
 Jpn. J. Appl. Phys., Vol. 43, No. 6B (2004) H. G. CHOI et al. 3917

-7 -8
10 10
Vg = - 0.8 V

-8 260 mw/cm2 -9 Pseudo kinks 260 mw/cm2

10 10
Photocurrent (A)

Photocurrent (A)
39 mw/cm2
39 mw/cm 2
-9 -10
10 10
6.5 mw/cm2 6.5 mw/cm2

-10
10 dark current -11
10

dark current
-11 -12
10 10
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Drain Voltage (V) Drain Voltage (V)
(a) (a)

-6
-4 Vg = 1 V 10
10
-7
10
-5 Vg = 0 V 10
Vg = 1 V
Drain Current (A)

Drain Current (A)

-6
10 10
-8

-7
10 -9
10 Vg = 0.5 V
-8
10
-10
-9 10
10
Vg = -0.8 V
-10 -11
10 10
-11 Vg = 0 V
10 -12
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 10
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Drain Voltage (V)
Drain Voltage (V)
(b)
(b)
Fig. 2. Characteristics of SOI MOSFET without the wire: (a) photocurrent
Fig. 3. Characteristics of SOI MOSFET with a wire: (a) photocurrent
under illumination of 6.5, 39 and 260 mW/cm2 and (b) drain current
under illumination of 6.5, 39 and 260 mW/cm2 and (b) drain current
under no illumination as a function of drain voltage.
under no illumination as a function of drain voltage.

the gate bias of 0:8 V, the channel underneath the gate is
depleted and the maximum photocurrent takes place. The
photocurrent increased with increasing illumination intensity
in the level of 1010 A of the dark current. This photocurrent
is due to the lateral bipolar action.4) The photocurrent is
already saturated at a very low voltage of 0.1 V. This can
make the SOI MOSFET useful for low-power application.
Responsivity, defined as the ratio of the generated photo-
current under illumination over light-sensitive area perpen-
dicular to incident light to the illumination intensity, is about
0.03 A/W.
Then, the photocurrent characteristics of the SOI MOS-
FET with the wire are determined as presented in Fig. 3(a).
All device parameters except for the existence of the wire
are the same as those of the previous one. When the channel
is reduced from micrometer-scale to nanometer-scale, the
output electric currents also decrease as much, as shown in
Figs. 2(b) and 3(b), which denotes that they are mainly
controlled by the wire region. The responsivity of the
photodetector with the wire is approximately 36 A/W which
is significantly higher than that of the conventional one. This
high responsivity is due to a strong lateral bipolar action by
the wire. You can find the abnormal increases in Fig. 3(a),
which are not found in electric currents (Fig. 3(b)). These
phenomena seem to be similar to the kink effects. However,
we consider that they are quite different from general kinks
because this device is a fully depleted SOI6) and they happen
at the low drain voltage of about 0.6 V where a negligible
number of electrons gain sufficient energy to cause impact
ionization. In addition, unlike general kink effects, when the
illumination intensity increases, pseudo kinks seem to occur
at an earlier time. Because similar results were observed for
several other devices, we consider that these phenomena
reflect a device structure resulting from the wire, as will be
discussed next.
These can be explained as a positive charge accumulation
in the channel under illumination using Fig. 4. The overall
currents are considered in two parts: the current by electric
field and that by optical generation. Electrons (e1 ) drifted by
electric field negligibly flow because of the existence of the
3918 Jpn. J. Appl. Phys., Vol. 43, No. 6B (2004)
Illumination
Source
e1
Holes
Wire
Fig. 4. Schematic of the photodetector with the wire where source-drain,
pad region and wire region are illustrated.
narrow wire and just form a major part of dark currents. At
low electric field, among the electron-hole pairs generated
by light illumination, electrons (e2 ) move more freely to the
drain along interfaces of the wire than the holes that have a
relatively low mobility. The generated holes tend to
accumulate in the narrow wire under illumination. As
electric field increases, the potential around the wire
decreases with the accumulation of holes and a sudden
increase in the photocurrent is triggered by drifted electrons
(e3 ). They enable our device to detect the light by strong
lateral bipolar action.
Figure 5 shows the intensity dependence of photocurrent.
The photodetector with the wire responds almost linearly,
while the optical response of the photodetector without the
wire has a minimal fluctuation. This result indicates that the
use of the wire at least does not affect the linearity of the
illumination.
Finally, in order to gather more information concerning
the visible image sensor, we took a closer look at the spectral
response. We used a monochromatic light source which
100
Photodetector with wire
Photodetector without wire
10
Photocurrent density(A/cm2)
1
0.1
0.01
1E-3
1E-4
1E-5
1 10
Light Intensity(mW/cm2)
Fig. 5. Output current density versus illumination intensity for SOI
MOSFET with and without a wire where the given drain voltage was 1 V.
A He-Ne laser source was used for illumination.
H. G. C HOI et al.
1.0
Spectral Response (Arb.Units)
0.9
0.8
3
e
0.7
2
e
0.6
Drain
Electrons
0.5
350 400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
Wavelength (nm)
Fig. 6. Relatively normalized spectral response of an illuminated SOI
MOSFET with a wire.
could be tuned between 350 nm to 750 nm wavelength.
Figure 6 shows the spectral response of the illuminated
device with the wire. Its shape and the maximum at 560 nm
are similar to those reported in case of the partially depleted
device.7) The considerable reduction around 500 nm is
assumed to be caused by the light interferences of insulating
layers or the thin top active layer. The optimization of
thicknesses of insulating layers and active thickness will
make our photodetector more sensitive to all visible spectral
ranges.
4. Conclusions
In summary, a highly sensitive photodetector, which is
composed of SOI MOSFET with a nanometer-scale wire,
has been demonstrated. Compared with the conventional
SOI MOSFET, our device gives at least three orders of
magnitude higher sensitivity and a significantly lower dark
current. It also has a good linearity with optical power.
Interestingly, pseudo kinks are found at the low drain
voltage of 0.6 V due to the wire. The physical mechanism of
the operation of our device was interpreted to be due to the
narrow channel effect and lateral bipolar action. Our device
can be easily downscaled and its circuitries easily organized
because it is controlled only by the wire region. This newly
proposed photodetector with low power consumption and
high sensitivity to visual light is suitable for mobile image
sensor units.
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