Surface passivation in n-type silicon and its application in silicon drift detector

Based on the surface passivation of n-type silicon in a silicon drift detector(SDD), we propose a new passivation structure of SiO2/Al2O3/SiO2 passivation stacks. Since the SiO2 formed by the nitric-acid-oxidation-of-silicon(NAOS)method has good compactness and simple process, the first layer film is formed by the NAOS method. The Al2O3 film is also introduced into the passivation stacks owing to exceptional advantages such as good interface characteristic and simple process. In addition, for requirements of thickness and deposition temperature, the third layer of the SiO2 film is deposited by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition(PECVD). The deposition of the SiO2 film by PECVD is a low-temperature process and has a high deposition rate, which causes little damage to the device and makes the SiO2 film very suitable for serving as the third passivation layer. The passivation approach of stacks can saturate dangling bonds at the interface between stacks and the silicon substrate, and provide positive charge to optimize the field passivation of the n-type substrate.The passivation method ultimately achieves a good combination of chemical and field passivations. Experimental results show that with the passivation structure of SiO2/Al2O3/SiO2, the final minority carrier lifetime reaches 5223 μs at injection of 5×10¹⁵ cm^-3. When it is applied to the passivation of SDD, the leakage current is reduced to the order of nA.     

Microstructure evolution and passivation quality of hydrogenated amorphous silicon oxide(a-SiOx:H) on〈100〉- and 〈111〉-orientated c-Si wafers

Hydrogenated amorphous silicon oxide(a-SiOx:H) is an attractive passivation material to suppress epitaxial growth and reduce the parasitic absorption loss in silicon heterojunction(SHJ) solar cells. In this paper, a-SiOx:H layers on different orientated c-Si substrates are fabricated. An optimal effective lifetime(τ(eff)) of 4743 μs and corresponding implied opencircuit voltage(iV(oc)) of 724 mV are obtained on〈100〉-orientated c-Si wafers. While τ(eff) of 2429 μs and iV_oc of 699 mV are achieved on 111-orientated substrate. The FTIR and XPS results indicate that the a-SiOx:H network consists of SiOx(Si-rich), Si–OH, Si–O–SiHx, SiO2 ≡ Si–Si, and O3 ≡ Si–Si. A passivation evolution mechanism is proposed to explain the different passivation results on different c-Si wafers. By modulating the a-SiOx:H layer, the planar silicon heterojunction solar cell can achieve an efficiency of 18.15%.     

Initial Processes of Sulfur Adsorption on Si（100） Surface

The adsorption of one monolayer S atoms on ideal Si（100） surface is studied by using the self-consistent tight binding linear muffon-tin orbital method. Energies of adsorption systems ors atoms on different sites are calculated. It is found that the adsorbed S atoms are more favorable on B1 site （bridge site） with a distance 0.131 nm above the Si surface. The .S, Si mixed layer might exist at S/Si（100） interface. The layer projected density of states are calculated and compared with that of the clean surface. The charge transfers are also investigated.     

Optical inter- and intra-band transitions in silicon nanocrystals: The role of surface vibrations

Silicon nanocrystals (ncs) belong to an interesting class of semiconductor nanostructures that manifest size dependent electronic properties. This well known effect of quantum confinement can explain many properties of silicon ncs. However, with decreasing size and dimension of the ncs, the role of surface phenomena becomes substantial. For example, we have shown recently that the strong luminescence from these ncs should be assigned to the exclusion of nonradiative channels rather than to the enhancement of radiative inter-band transitions. In addition, using infrared intra-band transitions spectroscopy, we were able to resolve the quantized electronic sublevels of small silicon ncs. We have found that under appropriate conditions, these electronic sublevels are resonantly coupled to surface vibrations. We suggest that this coupling mechanism is responsible for the exclusion of nonradiative channels in silicon ncs.     

Nanoparticle-Coated Silicon Nanowires

The synthesis of silicon nanowires that are densely coated with silicon nanoparticles is reported. These structures were produced in a two-step process, using a method known as hypersonic plasma particle deposition. In the first step, a Ti–Si nanoparticle film was deposited. In the second step the Ti-source was switched off, and nanoparticle-coated nanowires grew under the simultaneous action of Si vapor deposition and bombardment by Si nanoparticles. Total process time, including both steps, equaled 5 min, and resulted in formation of a dense network of randomly oriented nanowires covering1.5 cm² of substrate area. The nanowires are composed of single-crystal Si. The diameters of the nanowires vary over the range 100–800 nm. Each nanowire has a crystalline TiSi₂ catalyst particle, believed to have been solid during nanowire growth, at its tip.     

宽禁带碳化硅单晶衬底及器件研究进展

碳化硅作为第三代宽禁带半导体的核心材料之一,相对于传统的硅和砷化镓等半导体材料,具有禁带宽度大、载流子饱和迁移速度高,热导率高、临界击穿、场强高等诸多优异的性质。基于这些优良的特性,碳化硅材料是制备高温电子器件、高频大功率器件的理想材料。近年来在碳化硅材料生长和器件制备方面取得重大进展,对碳化硅材料特性和生长方法进行回顾,并研究了碳化硅光导开关偏压、触发能量、导通电流之间的关系,以及开关失效情况下电极表面的损伤情况。     

Six‐wave mixing induced by free‐carrier plasma in silicon nanowire waveguides

Nonlinear wave mixing in mesoscopic silicon structures is a fundamental nonlinear process with broad impact and applications. Silicon nanowire waveguides, in particular, have large third‐order Kerr nonlinearity, enabling salient and abundant four‐wave‐mixing dynamics and functionalities. Besides the Kerr effect, in silicon waveguides two‐photon absorption generates high free‐carrier densities, with corresponding fifth‐order nonlinearity in the forms of free‐carrier dispersion and free‐carrier absorption. However, whether these fifth‐order free‐carrier nonlinear effects can lead to six‐wave‐mixing dynamics still remains an open question until now. Here we report the demonstration of free‐carrier‐induced six‐wave mixing in silicon nanowires. Unique features, including inverse detuning dependence of six‐wave‐mixing efficiency and its higher sensitivity to pump power, are originally observed and verified by analytical prediction and numerical modeling. Additionally, asymmetric sideband generation is observed for different laser detunings, resulting from the phase‐sensitive interactions between free‐carrier six‐wave‐mixing and Kerr four‐wave‐mixing dynamics. These discoveries provide a new path for nonlinear multi‐wave interactions in nanoscale platforms.

     

Strip silicon waveguide for code synchronization in all-optical analog-to-digital conversion based on a lumped time-delay compensation scheme

An all-optical analog-to-digital converter(ADC) based on the nonlinear effect in a silicon waveguide is a promising candidate for overcoming the limitation of electronic devices and is suitable for photonic integration. In this paper, a lumped time-delay compensation scheme with 2-bit quantization resolution is proposed. A strip silicon waveguide is designed and used to compensate for the entire time-delays of the optical pulses after a soliton self-frequency shift(SSFS) module within a wavelength range of 1550 nm–1580 nm. A dispersion coefficient as high as-19800 ps/(km·nm) with ±0.5 ps/(km·nm)variation is predicted for the strip waveguide. The simulation results show that the maximum supportable sampling rate(MSSR) is 50.45 GSa/s with full width at half maximum(FWHM) variation less than 2.52 ps, along with the 2-bit effectivenumber-of-bit and Gray code output.     

Application of Autoradiography to the Investigation of New Doping Techniques of Semiconductor Materials

The development of technology of new semiconductor devices requires fundamental studies of a number of phenomena taking place in semiconductors during the doping process or accompanying the doping process.

These studies are concerned with the following problems:

1. Diffusion of gold in silicon and the effect of diffusion layers (particularly phosphorus layers) and epitaxial silicon layers on the distribution of gold in thin silicon plates.

2. Distribution of admixtures in silicon introduced with the aid of the ion implantation technique. Our studies concerned with the second of the above mentioned problems comprised an autoradiographic examination of the homogeneity of the beam of phosphorus ions implanted in silicon, and a study of some apparatus factors and of the purity of the basic material on the implantation.