Application of nanoporous silicon for a metal-semiconductor-metal visible light photodetector

In this paper we present a study on the application of nanoporous silicon to an optoelectronic device called a nanoporous silicon metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) visible light photodetector. This device was fabricated on a nanoporous silicon layer which was formed by electrochemical etching of a silicon wafer in a hydrofluoric acid solution under various anodization conditions such as the resistivity of the silicon wafer, current density, concentration of the hydrofluoric acid solution and anodization time. The structure of this device has two square Al/nanoporous silicon Schottky-barrier junctions on the silicon substrate and the electrode spacing is 500 microm. The experiment will study photoresponse and the response time of a nanoporous silicon MSM photodetector which was fabricated on the various porosity of a nanoporous silicon layer. It is found that when devices are fabricated on a higher porosity nanoporous silicon layer, the photoresponse of the device will expand toward the short-wavelength and the bandwidth of the spectrum response will cover visible light. In addition, it is found that the response time of the device decreases.     

Electrical detection and simulation of stress in silicon nitride spacer technology

The stress in deposited silicon dioxide and silicon nitride layers that are used in the fabrication of self-aligned bipolar transistor structures, is evaluated. The intrinsic and thermal stress of the layers is measured and these values are used in a finite element process simulator to calculate the pressure in the silicon around the emitter window during processing. Bipolar transistors are fabricated with different combinations of silicon oxide and silicon nitride and the yield of large transistor arrays is compared with the calculated pressure for the different combinations. The presence of a tensile pressure near the emitter coincides with a low measured device yield.     

用ECRCVD方法制备优质氮化硅钝化膜

利用电子回旋共振等离子体化学气相沉积(ECR—CVD)技术，以SiH4和N2为反应气体进行了氮化硅钝化薄膜的低温沉积技术的研究。采用原子力显微镜、傅立叶变换红外光谱和椭圆偏振光检测等技术对薄膜的表面形貌、结构、厚度和折射率等性质进行了测量。结果表明，采用ECR—CVD技术能够在较低的衬底温度条件下以较高的沉积速率制备厚度均匀的氮化硅薄膜，薄膜中H含量很低。薄膜沉积速率随微波功率和混合气体中硅烷比例的增加而增大。折射率随微波功率的增大而减小，随混合气体中硅炕比例的增大而增大。在相同气体混合比和微波功率条件下，较高衬底温度条件下制备的薄膜折射率较大。     

离体电生理检测微电极阵列传感器的设计与制备(英文)

针对动物离体组织电生理检测的实际需求,设计并制备了一种以载玻片为基底,以微电极阵列为敏感元件,并将灌流装置集成一体的传感器芯片.采用微电子机械系统(MEMS)技术中的薄膜工艺完成了微电极阵列的制备,其导电层和绝缘层分别是铂和氮化硅.采用聚二甲基硅烷(PDMS)浇铸制成埋有管道的方形灌流槽.该传感器可保持离体组织的生理活性,同时实现电生理信号的64通道同步记录.整个芯片结构紧凑,接口简单,使用方便.对芯片的电学性能进行了研究,结果表明,通过在微电极表面电镀修饰铂黑,可有效降低其交流阻抗,提高信噪比.     

Effects of bombardment on optical properties during the deposition of silicon nitride by reactive ion-beam sputtering

Thin silicon nitride (Si(1_x)N(x)) films were synthesized without substrate heating by means of reactive argon-ion sputtering of either silicon or a silicon nitride target in the 1000-1500-eV energy range at a nitrogen partial pressure of 1.3 × 10(-2) Pa and with simultaneous nitrogen ion-assisted bombardment in the 300-500-eV low energy range. The extinction coefficient and refractive index of the films were directly dependent on the N(+) ion-to-atom arrival ratio, assisted ion energy, film growth rate, and indicated a correlation with film stoichiometry and disorder. Si(3)N(4) films were obtained for N(+) ion/Si atom arrival ratios from 0.6 to 1.7 and for different Si:N atom arrival rates and had a refractive index as high as 2.04 (633 nm) and a low hydrogen content as indicated by IR spectra.     

基于集成氮化硅微腔的光学传感芯片研究

近年来随着传感器在生物探测领域的应用,提高传感器芯片的灵敏度成为研究的热点。利用氮化硅微腔灵敏度高、成本低、易于集成的优点,设计制造了1550 nm波长下二维、三维结构品质因子分别为1.6×104和4×103的悬空耦合传感器芯片,并详细研究了集成氮化硅微腔光学传感芯片在折射率测量方面的应用。     

Influence of geometrical perturbation at inner boundaries of invisibility cloaks

The influence of a geometrical perturbation delta at the inner boundaries of both cylindrical and spherical invisibility cloaks on invisibility performance is presented. The analytic solutions for such influence in the case of the general coordinate transformation are given. We show that the cylindrical cloak is more sensitive than a spherical cloak to such a perturbation. The difference results from the different asymptotic properties of eigenfunctions for the cylindrical and spherical wave equations. In particular, the zeroth-order scattering coefficient for a cylindrical cloak determined by -1/ln(delta) converges to zero very slowly. The noticeable scattering induced by the slow convergence speed can be decreased by choosing appropriate coordinate transformation functions. More interestingly, the slow convergence can be overcome dramatically by putting a PEC (PMC) layer at the interior boundary of the cloak shell for TM (TE) wave.     

Impact of substrate nitridation on the photoluminescence and photovoltaic characteristics of GaN grown on p-Si (100) by molecular beam epitaxy

This report focuses on the structural and optical properties of the GaN films grown on p-Si (100) substrates along with photovoltaic characteristics of GaN/p-Si heterojunctions fabricated with substrate nitridation and in absence of substrate nitridation. The high resolution X-ray diffraction (HRXRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), Raman and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopic studies reveal that the significant enhancement in the structural as well as in the optical properties of GaN epifilms grown with silicon nitride buffer layer when compared with the sample grown without silicon nitride buffer layer. The low temperature PL shows a free excitonic (FX) emission peak at 3.51 eV at the temperature of 5 K with a very narrow line width of 35 meV. Temperature dependent PL spectra follow the Varshni equation well and peak energy blue shifts by ~63 meV from 300 to 5 K. Raman data confirms the strain free nature and reasonably good crystallinity of the films. The GaN/p-Si heterojunctions fabricated without substrate nitridation show a superior photovoltaic performance compared to the devices fabricated in presence of substrate nitridation. The discussions have been carried out on the junction properties. Such single junction devices exhibit a promising fill factor and conversion efficiency of 23.36 and 0.12 %, respectively, under concentrated AM1.5 illumination.     

Low temperature silicon nitride by hot wire chemical vapour deposition for the use in impermeable thin film encapsulation on flexible substrates

High quality non porous silicon nitride layers were deposited by hot wire chemical vapour deposition at substrate temperatures lower than 110 degrees C. The layer properties were investigated using FTIR, reflection/transmission measurements and 1:6 buffered HF etching rate. A Si-H peak position of 2180 cm(-1) in the Fourier transform infrared absorption spectrum indicates a N/Si ratio around 1.2. Together with a refractive index of 1.97 at a wavelength of 632 nm and an extinction coefficient of 0.002 at 400 nm, this suggests that a transparent high density silicon nitride material has been made below 110 degrees C, which is compatible with polymer films and is expected to have a high impermeability. To confirm the compatibility with polymer films a silicon nitride layer was deposited on poly(glycidyl methacrylate) made by initiated chemical vapour deposition, resulting in a highly transparent double layer.     

A surface micromachined electrostatic ultrasonic air transducer

Airborne ultrasound has many applications such as, ranging, nondestructive evaluation, gas flow measurement, and acoustic microscopy. This paper investigates the generation and detection of ultrasound in air at a few MHz. Conventional plane piston lead zirconium titanate (PZT) based transducers perform poorly for this application due to the lack of proper matching layer materials. Electrostatic, or capacitive, transducers promise higher efficiency and broader bandwidth performance. The device structure in this work consists of a capacitor where one plate is a circular silicon nitride membrane coated with gold and the other is a rigid silicon substrate. By applying a voltage between the membrane and the silicon substrate, an electrostatic force is exerted on the membrane which sets it in motion, thus generating a sound wave in air. Presented here is an electrical equivalent circuit model for electrostatic transducers which is based on the early work of Mason (1942). The electrostatic transducers were designed and constructed for operation at 1.8 and 4.6 MHz. The transducers were fabricated using standard micromachining techniques. An optical interferometer was used to measure the peak displacement of the 1.8 MHz electrostatic transducer at 230 Å/V. A transmit-receive system was built using two electrostatic transducers. The system had a signal to noise ratio of 34 dB at a transducer separation of 1 cm. Each transducer had a 3-dB bandwidth of 20%, and a one-way insertion loss of 26 dB. There is excellent agreement between the measured device performance and theoretical predictions     

Fabrication and testing of bulk micromachined silicon carbide piezoresistive pressure sensors for high temperature applications

This paper explores the development of high-temperature pressure sensors based on polycrystalline and single-crystalline 3C-SiC piezoresistors and fabricated by bulk micromachining the underlying 100-mm diameter (100) silicon substrate. In one embodiment, phosphorus-doped APCVD polycrystalline 3C-SiC (poly-SiC) was used for the piezoresistors and sensor diaphragm, with LPCVD silicon nitride employed to electrically isolate the piezoresistor from the diaphragm. These piezoresistors fabricated from poly-SiC films deposited at different temperatures and doping levels were characterized, showing -2.1 as the best gauge factor and exhibited a sensitivities up to 20.9-mV/V*psi at room temperature. In a second embodiment, epitaxially-grown unintentionally nitrogen-doped single-crystalline 3C-SiC piezoresistors were fabricated on silicon diaphragms, with thermally grown silicon dioxide employed for the piezoresistor electrical isolation from the diaphragm. The associated 3C-SiC/SiO/sub 2//Si substrate was fabricated by bonding a (100) silicon wafer carrying the 3C-SiC onto a silicon wafer with thermal oxide covering its surface. The 3C-SiC handle wafer was then etched away in KOH. The diaphragm was fabricated by time etching the silicon substrate. The sensors were tested at temperatures up to 400/spl deg/C and exhibited a sensitivity of 177.6-mV/V*psi at room temperature and 63.1-mV/V*psi at 400/spl deg/C. The estimated longitudinal gauge factor of 3C-SiC piezoresistors along the [100] direction was estimated at about -18 at room temperature and -7 at 400/spl deg/C.     

A Device-Level Vacuum-Packaging Scheme for Microbolometers on Rigid and Flexible Substrates

This paper reports on the design, fabrication, and characterization of device-level vacuum-packaged microbolometers on rigid Si wafers and flexible polyimide substrates. Semiconducting yttrium barium copper oxide (commonly referred to as YBCO) serves as the bolometric material. Operating micromachined bolometers in vacuum reduces the thermal conductance G_th from the detector to the substrate. If flexibility of the substrate is not to be sacrificed, then the vacuum packaging needs to be done at the device level. Here, the microbolometers are fabricated on a silicon nitride support membrane, isolated from the substrate using surface micromachining. Suitable materials as well as various dimensions in the vacuum cavity are determined using finite-element method (FEM)-based CoventorWARE. A vacuum cavity made of Al₂O₃ has been designed. The thermal conductance G_th of bolometers with the geometry implemented in this work is the same for devices on rigid and flexible substrates. The theoretical value of G_th was calculated to be 4.0 x 10^-6 W/K for devices operating in vacuum and 1.4 x 10^-4 W/K for devices operating at atmospheric pressure. Device-level vacuum-packaged microbolometers on both rigid Si and flexible polyimide substrates have been fabricated and characterized for optical and electrical properties. A low thermal conductance of 1.1 X 10^-6 W/K has been measured six months after fabrication, which implies an intact vacuum cavity.     

Effect of substrate bias on properties of silicon nitride films prepared by activated reactive evaporation

Substrate biasing was explored to improve the quality of activated reactive evaporation processed (ARE) silicon nitride films. The samples were prepared at various r.f. (radio frequency) substrate bias power for a given electron beam current, pressure, and r.f. discharge powet. The quality of the ARE silicon nitride deposited at over 150 W of substrate bias was comparable with high temperature processed CVD films. These films showed a refractive index of 2.00, an absorption edge of 4.9 eV, a dielectric constant of 7.2–7.7 and hydrogen and oxygen concentrations far less than 1 at.%.     

Locally oxidized silicon surface-plasmon Schottky detector for telecom regime

We experimentally demonstrate an on-chip nanoscale silicon surface-plasmon Schottky photodetector based on internal photoemission process and operating at telecom wavelengths. The device is fabricated using a self-aligned approach of local-oxidation of silicon (LOCOS) on silicon on insulator substrate, which provides compatibility with standard complementary metal-oxide semiconductor technology and enables the realization of the photodetector and low-loss bus photonic waveguide at the same fabrication step. Additionally, LOCOS technique allows avoiding lateral misalignment between the silicon surface and the metal layer to form a nanoscale Schottky contact. The fabricated devices showed enhanced detection capability for shorter wavelengths that is attributed to increased probability of the internal photoemission process. We found the responsivity of the nanodetector to be 0.25 and 13.3 mA/W for incident optical wavelengths of 1.55 and 1.31 μm, respectively. The presented device can be integrated with other nanophotonic and nanoplasmonic structures for the realization of monolithic opto-electronic circuitry on-chip.     

Properties of plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposited silicon nitride for the application in multicrystalline silicon solar cells

Hydrogenated films of silicon nitride (SiNx:H) were investigated by varying the deposition condition in plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) reactor and annealing condition in infrared (IR) heated belt furnace to find the optimized condition for the application in multicrystalline silicon solar cells. By varying the gas ratio (ammonia to silane), the silicon nitride films of refractive indices 1.85-2.45 were obtained. Despite the poor deposition rate, silicon wafer with the film deposited at 450 °C showed the best minority carrier lifetime. The film deposited with the gases ratio of 0.57 showed the best peak of carrier lifetime at the annealing temperature of 800 °C. The performance parameters of cells fabricated by varying co-firing peak temperature also showed the best values at 800 °C. The multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) solar cells fabricated in conventional industrial production line applying the optimized film deposition and annealing conditions on large area substrate (125 mm × 125 mm) was found to have the conversion efficiency of 15%.     

High velocity SAW using aluminum nitride film on unpolished nucleation side of free-standing CVD diamond

High performances surface acoustic wave (SAW) filters based on aluminium nitride (AlN)/diamond layered structure have been fabricated. The C-axis oriented aluminum nitride films with various thicknesses were sputtered on unpolished nucleation side of free-standing polycrystalline chemical vapor deposition (CVD) diamond obtained by silicon substrate etching. Experimental results show that high order modes as well as Rayleigh waves are excited. Experimental results are in good agreement with the theoretical dispersion curves determined by software simulation with Green's function formalism. We demonstrate that high phase velocity first mode wave (so-called Sezawa wave) with high electromechanical coupling coefficient are obtained on AlN/diamond structure. This structure also has a low temperature coefficient of frequency (TCF), and preliminary results suggest that a zero TCF could be expected.     

中频孪生靶非平衡磁控溅射制备氮化硅薄膜及其性能(英文)

本文采用中频孪生靶非平衡磁控溅射技术在不同氮气流量比例的条件下制备出氮化硅薄膜。利用傅里叶变换红外光谱仪(FTIR)、X射线衍射仪(XRD)、原子力显微镜(AFM)、椭偏仪等研究了氮气流量比率对氮化硅薄膜的微观结构、表面形貌、沉积速率、折射率的影响。结果表明:中频孪生非平衡磁控溅射技术制备的薄膜为非晶态氮化硅。随着氮气流量比率的增加,Si-N键红外光谱吸收带向低波数漂移,薄膜的沉积速率降低,表面结构更为光滑致密,氮化硅薄膜的折射率降低。薄膜的硬度和杨氏模量分别达到22和220GPa左右。     

PECVD法生长氮化硅薄膜及其微结构梁特性的研究

采用化学气相沉积法(PECVD)在石英基片上制备氮化硅薄膜,应用MEMS工艺将氮化硅薄膜制作成双端固定的微结构梁,纳米压痕仪测量氮化硅薄膜的杨氏模量表明其值在136～172 Gpa之间,用曲率半径法测试薄膜的残余应力,并对微结构梁的弹性系数进行计算,结果表明弹性系数值在11.4～57 N/m.之间,根据实验所得弹性系数对微结构梁的驱动电压进行计算,其驱动电压在32.8～73V之间,微结构梁的实际驱动电压测得为34～60V。     

静电力驱动的液滴数字传输芯片

设计制作了一种基于静电力驱动的数字微流芯片。通过优化芯片的结构,采用硅为衬底,TiW/Au为微电极阵列,较薄的氮化硅和碳氟聚合物为介质层和疏水膜层,驱动电压大为降低。目前已成功实现了在30V的驱动电压下,对去离子水液滴的两维驱动,液滴移动速度可达96mm/s,同时也实现了对0.9%质量浓度NaCl溶液液滴的驱动。分析结果验证了液滴是在静电力的作用下实现移动。     

Fabrication and optical characterization of light trapping silicon nanopore and nanoscrew devices

We have fabricated nanotextured Si substrates that exhibit controllable optical reflection intensities and colors. Si nanopore has a photon trapping nanostructure but has abrupt changes in the index of refraction displaying a darkened specular reflection. Nanoscrew Si shows graded refractive-index photon trapping structures that enable diffuse reflection to be as low as 2.2% over the visible wavelengths. By tuning the 3D nanoscale silicon structure, the optical reflection peak wavelength and intensity are changed in the wavelength range of 300-800?nm, making the surface have different reflectivity and apparent colors. The relation between the surface optical properties with the spatial features of the photon trapping nanostructures is examined. Integration of photon trapping structures with planar Si structure on the same substrate is also demonstrated. The tunable photon trapping silicon structures have potential applications in enhancing the performance of semiconductor photoelectric devices.