Band gap tunability of Type II Antimonide-based superlattices

Current state-of-the art infrared photon detectors based on bulk semiconductors such as InSb or HgCdTe are now relatively mature and have almost attained the theoretical limit of performance. It means, however, that the technology can not be expected to demonstrate revolutionary improvements, in terms of device performances. In contrasts, low dimensional quantum systems such as superlattices, quantum wells, quantum dots, are still the development stage, yet have shown comparable performance to the bulk detector family. Especially for the Type II Antimony-based superlattices, recent years have seen significant improvements in material quality, structural design as well as fabrication techniques which lift the performance of Type II superlattice photodetectors to a new level. In this talk, we will discuss the advantages of Type II-superlattices, from the physical nature of the material to the practical realisms. We will demonstrate the flexibility in controlling the energy gap and their overall band alignment for the suppression of Auger recombination, as well as to create sophisticated hetero-designs.