Non-polar (11-20) GaN metal-semiconductor-metal photo-detectors with superior performance on silicon

This article reports a nonpolar GaN metal–semiconductor–metal (MSM) photodetector (PD) with an ultrahigh responsivity and an ultrafast response speed in the ultraviolet spectral region, which was fabricated on nonpolar (112̅0) GaN stripe arrays with a major improvement in crystal quality grown on patterned (110) silicon substrates by means of using our two-step processes. Our nonpolar GaN MSM-PD exhibits a responsivity of 695.3 A/W at 1 V bias and 12628.3 A/W at 5 V bias, both under 360 nm ultraviolet illumination, which are more than 20 times higher and 4 orders of magnitude higher compared to the current state-of-the-art photodetector, respectively. The nonpolar GaN MSM-PD displays a rise time and a fall time of 66 and 43 μs, respectively, which are 3 orders of magnitude faster compared to the current state-of-the-art photodetector.