Investigation of planar photodiodes of a focal plane array based on a heteroepitaxial InGaAs/InP structure

The results of investigation of planar photodiodes (PDs) in a focal plane array (FPA) based on a heteroepitaxial InGaAs/InP structure are reported. The FPA has a size of 320 × 256 elements with a pitch of 30 μm, which are hybridized with various ROIC readout circuits. It is demonstrated that the PD reverse bias should be no lower than 2 V in order to suppress the FPA intercoupling at the room temperature. It is found that the dark current may be reduced considerably by cooling the FPA to–20°С with a two-stage thermoelectric cooler. The best average room-temperature dark current over the FPA planar photodiodes is 0.22 pA at an optimum PD bias of–2.4 V.