Current-voltage, voltage-time, and noise measurements were taken on a three well, twenty period, InGaAs/A1GaAs quantum well infrared photodetector at low temperature and low constant current bias. Data from the voltage-time measurements exhibited random telegraph signal (RTS) which is a manifestation of a single electron capture/emission event. It thus contributes to generation-recombination noise of the device. A model is proposed that allows extraction of number of mobile carriers, continuum state electron mobility, electron emission times and trap activation energy from the RTS data. These parameters may then be utilized to predict the excess noise spectrum. Data from the noise spectral density measurements show 1/f like noise at frequencies below I kHz. It can be shown to be a sum of Lorenztian curves with various electron emission times.

The model proposed predicts that the local number of mobile charge carriers in any barrier section is less than 5 (total in the device around 300), there is nearly ballistic electron transport (mobility values around 3×105cm2/Vs), and the traps causing the RTS are in the barriers of the device and there are two of them in the device tested. The model applies to the linear mode of operation and assumes that the well regions are electron reservoirs, i.e. contacts, for the resistive barrier regions. The device is thus divided into a number of resistive portions in series. Each resistive portion is statistically independent from the others at low temperatures since the time the electrons spend in the wells is long compared to intra-well scattering times. This allows the electrons to fully thermalize and lose any statistical information from their previous continuum state trajectory.