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US 9,431,443 B1Granted
Image sensor with heating effect and related methods
AssigneeSemiconductor Components Industries, LLC
InventorsVictor Lenchenkov, Hamid Soleimani
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An image sensor including a semiconductor layer. A light absorber layer couples with the semiconductor layer at a pixel of the image sensor and absorbs incident light to substantially prevent the incident light from entering the semiconductor layer. The light absorber layer heats a depletion region of the semiconductor layer in response to absorbing the incident light, creating electron/hole pairs. The light absorber layer may include one or more narrow bandgap materials.
Claims14
An image sensor, comprising:
- a semiconductor layer, and;
- a light absorber layer coupled with the semiconductor layer at a pixel region of the image sensor, the light absorber layer configured to absorb incident light and to substantially prevent the incident light from entering the semiconductor layer;
- wherein the light absorber layer is configured to heat a region of the semiconductor layer adjacent to the light absorber layer in response to absorbing the incident light and to create electron/hole pairs therein;
- and
- wherein the light absorber layer is positioned between two deep trenches of the semiconductor layer, each deep trench extending fully through the semiconductor layer from a backside of the semiconductor layer through to a frontside of the semiconductor layer.
2 more elements
An image sensor, comprising:
- a photodiode comprised at least partially within a semiconductor layer, and;
- a light absorber layer coupled with the photodiode, the light absorber layer configured to absorb incident light within predetermined wavelengths to substantially prevent the incident light from passing from the light absorber layer to the photodiode;
- wherein the light absorber layer is configured to heat a depletion region of the photodiode in response to absorbing the incident light and to create electron/hole pairs in the depletion region thereby, and;
- wherein the image sensor further comprises at least one dielectric layer coupled with the semiconductor layer, and electrical routing coupled at least partially within the at least one dielectric layer which electrically couples the photodiode with at least one other element of the image sensor.
1 more element
An image sensor, comprising:
- a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) device comprising a semiconductor layer, the semiconductor layer comprising a plurality of photodiodes, each photodiode comprising a pixel having a depletion region, and;
- a plurality of light absorber layers, each light absorber layer coupled with one of the pixels of the semiconductor layer, each light absorber layer configured to absorb incident light and substantially prevent the incident light from entering one of the photodiodes;
- wherein each light absorber layer is configured to heat the depletion region of one of the photodiodes in response to absorbing the incident light, and to create electron/hole pairs in the depletion region thereby, through an increase in temperature alone.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.