Temperature dependent characteristics of submicron GaAs avalanche photodiodes obtained by a nonlocal analysis

In this paper, using a nonlocal analysis we have extracted the temperature dependent ionization coefficients and threshold energies of submicron GaAs avalanche photodiodes (APDs) with multiplication region thicknesses as narrow as 49 nm, from electron and hole injection photo-multiplication processes. These extracted parameters have been used to predict the temperature dependence of APDs characteristics, such as mean gain, 3 dB-bandwidth, gain-bandwidth product, excess noise factor, performance factor, and breakdown field, over a temperature range of 20 K to 290 K. In the nonlocal analysis we have taken the effects of nonuniform electric filed within the multiplication region and its surrounding depletion regions, injected carrier's initial ionization energy, carrier's spatial ionization rate as well as the carrier's dead space and its previous ionization history into account. We have shown that our predicted gain values are in excellent agreement with existing experimental data measured by others.