USA As Represented by Secretary of the Navy

David I Ma

John Bradley Boos

Nicolas A Papanicolaou

Harry B Dietrich

Gordon W Anderson

Ingham A Mack

An integrated, planar, single-channel, photodetector-amplifier device is disclosed. The single-channel device includes a photodetector layer and an amplifier layer above the photodetector layer. The photodetector layer is low-doped to give a low dark current and is sufficiently thick to give a high quantum efficiency. The amplifier layer is of a smaller thickness and is a more highly doped material than the photodetector layer, to provide an amplifier having high gain. An insulating layer is included between the photodetector and amplifier layers for electrically isolating the photodetector and amplifier layers. The layers are fabricated on a substrate. Isolation regions are also included for electrically laterally isolating a photodetector, amplifier, and other circuit components comprising the single channel device from each other. An integrated multi-channel photodetector-amplifier array is also disclosed which array comprises a plurality of single-channel photodetector-amplifier devices fabricated on the same substrate with isolation regions created by proton bombardment to electrically laterally isolate the individual circuit channels from each other. The photodetector-amplifier array may be a linear or an area array.

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Arlington, VA, United States of America

David I Ma