APL Materials (Jun 2020)

Toward understanding and optimizing Au-hyperdoped Si infrared photodetectors

  • S. Q. Lim,
  • C. T.-K. Lew,
  • P. K. Chow,
  • J. M. Warrender,
  • J. S. Williams,
  • B. C. Johnson

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0010083
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 6
pp. 061109 – 061109-5

Abstract

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Au-hyperdoped Si absorbs near-infrared (NIR) light and recent efforts have successfully produced Si-based NIR photodetectors based on this property but with low detection efficiencies. Here, we investigate the differences between the optical and photocurrent properties of Au-hyperdoped Si. Although defects introduced during fabrication of these materials may not exhibit significant optical absorption, we show that they can produce a measurable photocurrent under NIR illumination. Our results indicate that the optimal efficiency of impurity-hyperdoped Si materials is yet to be achieved and we discuss these opportunities in light of our results. This work thus represents a step forward in demonstrating the viability of using impurity-hyperdoped Si materials for NIR photodetection.