Silicon photodiodes with high photoconductive gain at room temperature

Silicon photodiodes with high photoconductive gain are demonstrated. The photodiodes are fabricated in a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible process. The typical room temperature responsivity at 940 nm is > 20 A/W and the dark current density is similar to 100 nA/cm(2) at 5 V reverse bias, yielding a detectivity of similar to 10(14) Jones. These photodiodes are good candidates for applications that require high detection sensitivity and low bias operation. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America