High-performance metal-semiconductor-metal photodetectors (MSM-PD's) w
ith interdigitated semi-transparent Au Schottky contacts have been fab
ricated on pseudomorphic In0.9Ga0.1P-InP-InGaAs heterostructure. The r
esponsivity measured at 1.55-mu m wavelength is greatly enhanced from
0.4 A/W to 0.7 A/W as the thickness of the Au electrodes is decreased
to 10 mn. This corresponds to a 75% improvement over the conventional
MSM-PD's with opaque metal electrodes, With a pseudomorphic InGaP barr
ier-enhancement layer, these devices exhibit a dark current density as
low as 1.6 pA/mu m(2). Extremely linear photoresponse without any int
ernal gain is also observed for these detectors, The full-width at hal
f maximum of the temporal response for the devices with semi-transpare
nt electrodes is about 85 ps compared to 80 ps for the conventional on
es.