(under subclass 184) Subject matter wherein carriers generated in the active region of the device in response to light incident thereupon, achieve enough kinetic energy to knock further carriers from the crystalline lattice of the active region producing an avalanche or snowball increase in operating current level.
(1) Note. Avalanche photodetector devices may have bipolar transistor structure, i.e., wherein the heterojunction device has three terminals - an emitter, a collector and a base, the operating current comprising both positive and negative electrical charges.
