Integrated Detector for Ballistic Electron Emission Luminescence

Ballistic electron emission luminescence (BEEL) uses injected hot electrons to induce interband transitions and light emission in semiconductor collectors. Local hot electron injection and rastering from a scanning tunneling probe can therefore potentially provide a means to image buried luminescent layers. However, a sensitive photon detector is required to compensate for low external efficiency. We have directly integrated a Si photodetector to a GaAs/AlGaAs BEEL structure by UHV thin-film metal wafer bonding. This room-temperature technique overcomes index mismatch and numerical aperture problems associated with far-field detection. We expect this method will make BEEL microscopy generally applicable to the study of buried luminescent layers in light emitting devices based on arbitrary material systems. THis work is funded by US DOE.