Laser-scanned p-i-n photodiode (LSP) for image detection

• Autor(a) principal: Vieira, Manuela
• Data de Publicação: 2001
• Outros Autores: Fernandes, Miguel, Martins, João, Louro, Paula, Maçarico, António Filipe Ruas Trindade, Schwarz, Reinhard, Schubert, Markus B.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.21/14053
• topic: a/ c-Si:H p-i-n devices; Analog readout; Image acquisition and representation; Laser-scanner photodiode (LSP); Optical sensors; Solid-state transducer

Amorphous and microcrystalline glass/ZnO:Al/p(a-Si:H)/i(a-Si:H)/n(a-Si1 C :H)/Al imagers with different n-layer resistivities were produced by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition technique (PE-CVD). The transducer is a simple, large area p-i-n photodiode; an image projected onto the sensing element leads to spatially confined depletion regions that can be readout by scanning the photodiode with a low-power modulated laser beam. The essence of the scheme is the analog readout and the absence of semiconductor arrays or electrode potential manipulations to transfer the information coming from the transducer. The effect of the image intensity on the sensor output characteristics (sensitivity, linearity, blooming, resolution, and signal-tonoise ratio) are analyzed for different material composition. The results show that the responsivity and the spatial resolution are limited by the conductivity of the doped layers. An enhancement of one order of magnitude in the image intensity and on the spatial resolution is achieved with a responsivity of 0.2 mW/cm2 by decreasing the -layer conductivity by the same amount. In a 4 4 cm2 laser-scanned photodiode (LSP) sensor, the resolution was less than 100 m and the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio was about 32 dB. Aphysical model supported by electrical simulation gives insight into the methodology used for image representation.