Electronics Handbook/Components/Diodes/Photo

A photodiode is a semiconductor diode that functions as a photodetector. Photodiodes are packaged with either a window or optical fiber connection, in order to let in the light to the sensitive part of the device. They may also be used without a window to detect vacuum UV or X-rays.

A phototransistor is in essence nothing more than a bipolar transistor that is encased in a transparent case so that light can reach the base-collector junction. The phototransistor works like a photodiode, but with a much higher sensitivity for light, because the electrons that are generated by photons in the base-collector junction are injected into the base, and this current is then amplified by the transistor operation. However, a phototransistor has a slower response time than a photodiode.

Operation

A photodiode is a p-n junction or p-i-n structure. When light of sufficient photon energy strikes the diode, it excites an electron thereby creating a mobile electron and a positively charged electron hole. If the absorption occurs in the junction's depletion region, or one diffusion length away from it, these carriers are swept from the junction by the built-in field of the depletion region, producing a photocurrent.

Photodiodes can be used under either zero bias (photovoltaic mode) or reverse bias (photoconductive mode). In zero bias, light falling on the diode causes a current across the device, leading to forward bias which in turn induces "dark current" in the opposite direction to the photocurrent. This is called the photovoltaic effect, and is the basis for solar cells — in fact, a solar cell is just a large number of big photodiodes.

Reverse bias induces only little current (known as saturation or back current) along its direction. But a more important effect of reverse bias is widening of the depletion layer (Therefore expanding the reaction volume) and strengthening the photocurrent. Circuits based on this effect are more sensitive to light than ones based on the photovoltaic effect.

Avalanche photodiodes have a similar structure, but they are operated with much higher reverse bias. This allows each photo-generated carrier to be multiplied by avalanche breakdown, resulting in internal gain within the photodiode, which increases the effective responsivity of the device.

Materials

The material used to make a photodiode is critical to defining its properties, because only photons with sufficient energy to excite an electron across the material's bandgap will produce significant photocurrents.

Materials commonly used to produce photodiodes:

Material	Wavelength range (nm)
Silicon	190–1100
Germanium	400–1700
Indium gallium arsenide	800–2600
Lead sulfide	<1000-3500

Because of their greater bandgap, silicon-based photodiodes generate less noise than germanium-based photodiodes, but germanium photodiodes must be used for wavelengths longer than approximately 1 µm.

Since transistors and ICs are made of semiconductors, and contain P-N junctions, almost every active component is potentially a photodiode. Many components, especially those sensitive to small currents, will not work correctly if illuminated, due to the induced photocurrents. In most components this is not desired, so they are placed in an opaque housing. Since housings are not completely opaque to X-rays or other high energy radiation, these can still cause many ICs to malfunction due to induced photo-currents.

Features

Critical performance parameters of a photodiode include:

responsivity: The ratio of generated photocurrent to incident light power, typically expressed in A/W when used in photoconductive mode. The responsivity may also be expressed as a quantum efficiency, or the ratio of the number of photogenerated carriers to incident photons and thus a unitless quantity.

dark current: The current through the photodiode in the absence of any input optical signal, when it is operated in photoconductive mode. The dark current includes photocurrent generated by background radiation and the saturation current of the semiconductor junction. Dark current must be accounted for by calibration if a photodiode is used to make an accurate optical power measurement, and it is also a source of noise when a photodiode is used in an optical communication system.

noise-equivalent power: (NEP) The minimum input optical power to generate photocurrent, equal to the rms noise current in a 1 hertz bandwidth. The related characteristic detectivity (D) is the inverse of NEP, 1/NEP; and the specific detectivity ( $D^{\star }$ ) is the detectivity normalized to the area (A) of the photodetector, $D^{\star }=D{\sqrt {A}}$ . The NEP is roughly the minimum detectable input power of a photodiode.

When a photodiode is used in an optical communication system, these parameters contribute to the sensitivity of the optical receiver, which is the minimum input power required for the receiver to achieve a specified bit error ratio.

Applications

Photodiode schematic symbol

P-N photodiodes are used in similar applications to other photodetectors, such as photoconductors, charge-coupled devices, and photomultiplier tubes.

Photodiodes are used in consumer electronics devices such as compact disc players, smoke detectors, and the receivers for remote controls in VCRs and televisions.

In other consumer items such as camera light meters, clock radios (the ones that dim the display when it's dark) and street lights, photoconductors are often used rather than photodiodes, although in principle either could be used.

Photodiodes are often used for accurate measurement of light intensity in science and industry. They generally have a better, more linear response than photoconductors.

They are also widely used in various medical applications, such as detectors for Computed tomography (coupled with scintillators) or instruments to analyze samples (immunoassay). They are also used in Blood gas monitors.

PIN diodes are much faster and more sensitive than ordinary p-n junction diodes, and hence are often used for optical communications and in lighting regulation.

P-N photodiodes are not used to measure extremely low light intensities. Instead, if high sensitivity is needed, avalanche photodiodes, intensified charge-coupled devices or photomultiplier tubes are used for applications such as astronomy, spectroscopy, night-vision equipment and laser range finding.

References

Portions of this article are adapted from Federal Standard 1037C and from the FAA Glossary of Optical Communications Terms

Gowar, John, Optical Communication Systems, 2 ed., Prentice-Hall, Hempstead UK, 1993 ISBN 0-13-638727-6