Silicon Based High Efficiency Near Infra Red Detector

Silicon continues to be the material of choice for most microelectronic applications. Unfortunately, silicon is not a good material for high efficiency near IR photo-emission or detection because it has an indirect bandgap. Recently, studies of b-FeSi2have shown that it can be grown into silicon and has a direct bandgap of ~0.87 eV which corresponds to a wavelength of 1.5 microns. This wavelength is ideally suited to many applications in the fiber optic communication and near IR thermal sensing. Sincethis material is silicon based, it could be directly integrated into silicon electronics. Unfortunately, current production methods to form b-FeSi2 have proven inconsistent. In this program, Nanohmics in collaboration with the University of North Texas,propose to demonstrate a novel epitaxial deposition method to produce high quality, consistent direct bandgap b-FeSi2 that has emission at 1.5 microns a reproducible manner. Development of direct bandgap silicon based optoelectronic devices will spurdevelopment of source and detector devices in the 1.3-1.6 micron range where silicon-based fibers have the lowest losses and development of directly integrated focal plane arrarys in the near infrared range. This technology will also enable opticalinterconnects in silicon devices opening the possibility of stacking chips on top of each other without the need for hard wiring the devices together.