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  4. Prediction of optically-triggered amplification in phototransistor with SPICE circuit simulators
 
conference paper

Prediction of optically-triggered amplification in phototransistor with SPICE circuit simulators

Rossi, Chiara  
•
Sallese, Jean-Michel  
January 1, 2020
Physics And Simulation Of Optoelectronic Devices Xxviii
Conference on Physics and Simulation of Optoelectronic Devices XXVIII

Modeling of optoelectronic devices involves long and complex numerical simulations, usually performed with TCAD tools. Numerical simulations provide accurate results for a single device but are not feasible when dealing with a full circuit comprising several nodes. To solve this issue, we developed a novel approach to simulate optoelectronic devices in standard SPICE circuit simulators, thus avoiding using TCAD tools. The concept is based on a coarse meshing of the semiconductor whose nodes are interconnected with the so-called Generalized Lumped Devices. The Generalized Lumped Devices are four ports devices: two ports simulate real currents and voltages in the semiconductor while two additional ports simulate excess carrier density and gradient through the definition of equivalent currents and voltages. The model behind the Generalized Devices is physics based and can correctly simulate optical generation of excess carriers, drift-diffusion transport, bulk and surface recombination as well as capacitive effects, without the need to introduce fitting or empirical parameters. Moreover, since all inputs and outputs are electrical quantities, the model is fully SPICE-compatible and can be merged with SPICE netlists of circuits. In this work, we use the Generalized Devices approach to simulate a bipolar phototransistor and prove that we can predict the photocurrent versus the collector voltage, for different illumination intensities. The model accurately takes into account the optically-triggered current amplification in the phototransistor. Sentaurus TCAD numerical simulations are in agreement with the Generalized Devices approach. Finally, since the model is physics based, we could assess the impact of different semiconductor parameters, such as doping concentrations, lifetime, surface recombination velocity, on the output characteristics of the phototransistors, directly with SPICE circuit simulators.

  • Details
  • Metrics
Type
conference paper
DOI
10.1117/12.2545771
Web of Science ID

WOS:000651823800015

Author(s)
Rossi, Chiara  
•
Sallese, Jean-Michel  
Date Issued

2020-01-01

Publisher

SPIE-INT SOC OPTICAL ENGINEERING

Publisher place

Bellingham

Published in
Physics And Simulation Of Optoelectronic Devices Xxviii
ISBN of the book

978-1-5106-3312-4

Series title/Series vol.

Proceedings of SPIE

Volume

11274

Start page

112740X

Subjects

Optics

•

Physics, Applied

•

Physics, Condensed Matter

•

Physics

•

phototransistor

•

optoelectronics

•

spice

•

generalized devices

•

photoamplification

•

photodiode

•

minority carriers

•

surface recombination

•

silicon

•

network

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
GR-SCI-IEL  
Event nameEvent placeEvent date
Conference on Physics and Simulation of Optoelectronic Devices XXVIII

San Francisco, CA

Feb 03-06, 2020

Available on Infoscience
June 19, 2021
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/178905
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