US 5,101,255 A · Amorphous photoelectric conversion device with avalanche

Amorphous photoelectric conversion device with avalanche

OwnerSachio Ishioka, Yukio Takasaki +10inventors

InventorsSachio Ishioka, Yukio Takasaki, Tadaaki Hirai, Kazutaka Tsuji, Tatsuo Makishima, Yasuhiko Nonaka, Tatsuro Kawamura, Takashi Yamashita, Kazuhisa Taketoshi, Keiichi Shidara, Fumihiko Ando, Kenkichi Tanioka

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Abstract

Disclosed is a photoelectric conversion device which comprises: a photoconductive layer made of amorphous semiconductor material which shows charge multiplication and which converts photo signals into electric signals; and a substrate having electric circuits or the like (for example switching elements) for reading the electric signals. The amorphous semiconductor material used according to the invention shows the charge multiplication action under predetermined intensity of electric field so that a high sensitive photoelectric conversion device having a gain which is not smaller than 1 is realized.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A photoelectric conversion device for imaging, comprising:

a substrate having a signal-reading scanning circuit thereon;
a photoconductive region for generating image signals in accordance with external photo image signals, by photoelectric conversion therein, the photoconductive region being formed on said substrate and having an amorphous semiconductor layer for multiplying the image signals through avalanche multiplication, the avalanche multiplication being caused in the inside of the amorphous semiconductor layer;
a conductive layer formed on said photoconductive region;
and
means for applying an external electric field to the photoconductive region so as to induce avalanche multiplication in the amorphous semiconductor layer.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.