Signal amplification and leakage current suppression in amorphous silicon p-i-n diodes by field profile tailoring

Conference · Thu Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 1999

OSTI ID:20107979

Hong, W S; Zhong, F; Mireshghi, A; Perez-Mendez, V

The performance of amorphous silicon p-i-n diodes as radiation detectors in terms of signal amplitude can be greatly improved when there is a built-in signal gain mechanism. The authors describe an avalanche gain mechanism which is achieved by introducing stacked intrinsic, p-type, and n-type layers into the diode structure. They replaced the intrinsic layer of the conventional p-i-n diode with i{sub 1}-p-i{sub 2}-n-i{sub 3} multilayers. The i{sub 2} layer (typically 1 {approximately} 3 {micro}m) achieves an electric field > 10{sup 6} V/cm, while maintaining the p-i interfaces to the metallic contact at electric fields < 7 x 10{sup 4} V/cm, when the diode is fully depleted. For use in photo-diode applications the whole structure is less than 10 {micro}m thick. Avalanche gains of 10 {approximately} 50 can be obtained when the diode is biased to {approximately} 500 V. Also, dividing the electrodes to strips of 2 {micro}m width and 20 {micro}m pitch reduced the leakage current up to an order of magnitude, and increased light transmission without creating inactive regions.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab., CA (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: US Department of Energy
• DOE Contract Number: AC03-76SF00098
• OSTI ID: 20107979
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
DESIGN
LEAKAGE CURRENT
PERFORMANCE
SI SEMICONDUCTOR DETECTORS
SILICON DIODES
TOWNSEND DISCHARGE