In order to increase the spectral response range and improve the mobility of the photo-generated carriers (e.g. in an nBn photodetector), a digital alloy absorber may be employed by embedding one (or fraction thereof) to several monolayers of a semiconductor material (insert layers) periodically into a different host semiconductor material of the absorber layer. The semiconductor material of the insert layer and the host semiconductor materials may have lattice constants that are substantially mismatched. For example, this may performed by periodically embedding monolayers of InSb into an InAsSb host as the absorption region to extend the cutoff wavelength of InAsSb photodetectors, such as InAsSb based nBn devices. The described technique allows for simultaneous control of alloy composition and net strain, which are both key parameters for the photodetector operation.