High speed optoelectronic devices and associated methods are provided. In one aspect, for example, a high speed optoelectronic device can include a silicon material having an incident light surface, a first doped region and a second doped region forming a semiconductive junction in the silicon material, and a textured region coupled to the silicon material and positioned to interact with electromagnetic radiation. The optoelectronic device has a response time of from about 1 picosecond to about 5 nanoseconds and a responsivity of greater than or equal to about 0.4 A/W for electromagnetic radiation having at least one wavelength from about 800 nm to about 1200 nm.

Embodiments relate to photo cell devices. In one embodiment, a trench-based photo cells provides very fast capture of photo-generated charge carriers, particularly when compared with conventional approaches, as the trenches of the photo cells create depleted regions deep within the bulk of the substrate that avoid the time-consuming diffusion of carriers.

A system controls a brightness of an augmented reality (AR) eye-mounted device. The system includes an eye-mounted display, a photodetector system, and a controller. The eye-mounted display includes a contact lens and a femtoprojector. The femtoprojector is contained in the contact lens and is configured to project an AR image to a user's retina. The AR image is overlaid on an external scene viewed by the user through the contact lens. The photodetector system detects a brightness level of the external scene. Based on the brightness level of the external scene, the controller adjusts a brightness level of the AR image projected to the user's retina. In some embodiments, the eye-mounted display receives image data defining the AR image and the controller adjusts a bit depth of the image data based on the brightness level of the AR image.

A new technique for sensing optical cavity mode mismatch using a mode converter formed from a cylindrical lens mode converting telescope, radio frequency quadrant photodiodes (RFQPDs), and a heterodyne detection scheme. The telescope allows the conversion of the Laguerre-Gauss basis to the Hermite-Gauss (HG) basis, which can be measured with quadrant photodiodes. Conversion to the HG basis is performed optically, measurement of mode mismatched signals is performed with the RFQPDs, and a feedback error signal is obtained with heterodyne detection.

An optoelectronic device for detecting volatile organic compounds is described, including a die with a semiconductor body, the die forming a MOSFET transistor and at least one photodiode. The optoelectronic device is optically couplable to an optical source that emits radiation with a spectrum at least partially overlapping the absorption spectrum range of the semiconductor body. The MOSFET transistor is planar and includes a gate region and a catalytic region that is arranged on the gate region such that, in the presence of a gas mixture including volatile organic compounds, the MOSFET transistor can be biased to generate an electrical signal indicating the overall concentration of the gas mixture. The photodiode generates a photocurrent that is a function of the concentration of one or more polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons present in the gas mixture.

A gallium nitride-based sensor having a heater structure and a method of manufacturing the same are disclosed, the method including growing an n-type or p-type GaN layer on a substrate, growing a barrier layer on the n-type or p-type GaN layer, sequentially growing a u-GaN layer and a layer selected from among an Al.sub.xGa.sub.1-xN layer, an In.sub.xAl.sub.1-xN layer and an In.sub.xAl.sub.yGa.sub.1-x-yN layer on the barrier layer, patterning the n-type or p-type GaN layer to form an electrode, forming the electrode along the pattern formed on the n-type or p-type GaN layer, and forming a sensing material layer on the layer selected from among the Al.sub.xGa.sub.1-xN layer, the In.sub.xAl.sub.1-xN layer and the In.sub.xAl.sub.yGa.sub.1-x-yN layer, wherein a HEMT sensor or a Schottky diode sensor can be heated using an n-GaN (or p-GaN) layer, thus increasing the sensitivity of the sensor and reducing the restoration time.

A hot carrier photodetector has been developed that absorbs approximately 80% of broadband infrared radiation by using a planar nanoscale back metal contact to silicon. Based on the principles of the hot carriers generation in ultrathin metal films, silicon-based CMOS image sensors are developed which operate in the IR diapason. The device uses absorption in an ultrathin metallic nanostructure to generate therein a non-equilibrium electron distribution which subsequently is injected into the silicon material via a Schottky contact at the Si body, thus generating a photoresponse to an incident IR radiation. A pixeled array including interconnected hot carriers metallic nanostructured cell(s) and traditional RGB elements is envisioned to enable RGB-IR imaging from a single silicon based wafer.

A photo-detecting apparatus includes a semiconductor substrate. A first germanium-based light absorption material is supported by the semiconductor substrate and configured to absorb a first optical signal having a first wavelength greater than 800 nm. A first metal line is electrically coupled to a first region of the first germanium-based light absorption material. A second metal line is electrically coupled to a second region of the first germanium-based light absorption material. The first region is un-doped or doped with a first type of dopants. The second region is doped with a second type of dopants. The first metal line is configured to control an amount of a first type of photo-generated carriers generated inside the first germanium-based light absorption material to be collected by the second region.

An optical sensing device can include: a semiconductor having a photosensitive region; an optical structure located above the photosensitive region; and where the optical structure comprises alternately stacked light-filtering layers and light-transmitting layers, in order to block large-angle incident light from entering the photosensitive region.

A detector for determining a position of at least one object, in particular for 3D-sensing concepts, is disclosed. The detector comprises a longitudinal optical sensor (110) for determining a longitudinal position of an object by a light beam traveling from the object to the detector and a transversal optical detector (112) which may be designed as an imaging device or a position sensitive detector. The longitudinal sensor (110) has at least two PN structures or PIN structures (138, 140). Each of the PN structures or PIN structures is located between two electrode layers (144), thereby forming photodiodes (146) having a longitudinal sensor region (148) each. Longitudinal sensor signals from the photodiodes (146) are, given the same total power of illumination, are dependent on a beam cross-section of the light beam in the longitudinal sensor regions (148). As an alternative, instead of the transversal optical detector (112) the photodiodes (146) of the longitudinal optical sensor (110) may be adapted to operate as one-dimensional position sensitive detectors each, for determining a transversal x-coordinate and a transversal y-coordinate, respectively.