Metallic conduction behavior in selenium-hyperdoped silicon

Hall measurements at 80–300 K are performed on crystalline silicon doped with selenium exceeding the equilibrium solid solubility limit using ion implantation combined with furnace annealing. The temperature dependence of free carrier density and sheet conductivity of the Se doping layer changes with implantation dose. Metallic conduction behavior is well observed in the sample doped with selenium to be 7.4×10²⁰/cm³. The overlapping between Se impurity states below Si conduction band might give a microscopic explanation.     

Selenium implantation in GaAs

The dependence of carrier concentration and mobility profiles on the dose of 400 keV Se ions implanted into Cr-doped semi-insulating GaAs, and on the annealing temperature has been studied for doses ranging from 3 × 10¹²/cm² to 2 × 10¹⁵/cm² and for annealing temperatures between 800 and 1000°C. Sputtered aluminum oxy-nitride and silicon nitride films were used as encapsulants for protection of the implanted surface during annealing treatments. The carrier profiles exhibited deep tails for implantations along both random and {110} planar directions. It was found that annealing temperatures of 900°C or above were necessary to obtain high carrier density and mobility values for implantation doses above 1 × 10¹⁴/cm². Samples encapsulated with aluminum oxy-nitride films exhibited 3 to 4 times higher carrier concentration values and also slightly higher mobility values than those encapsulated with silicon nitride films. The maximum carrier concentration obtained was about 4 × 10¹⁸/cm³ with aluminum oxy-nitride films as the encapsulant.     

Solid boron and antimony doping of Si and SiGe grown by gas source molecular beam epitaxy

Solid boron and antimony doping of silicon and SiGe grown by molecular beam epitaxy using disilane and germane as sources has been studied. Elemental boron is a well behaved p-type dopant. At effusion cell temperatures of 1700–1750°C, hole carrier concentrations in the 10²⁰ cm⁻³ range have been obtained. Elemental antimony doping shows surface segregation problems. For uniformly doped layers, the as-grown materials do not show n-type conductivity. Electron concentrations in the 10¹⁷ cm⁻³ range were obtained by post-growth conventional and rapid thermal annealing at 900 and 1000°C, respectively. The electron Hall mobility improves with optimum annealing time. Delta doping of buried layers exhibits slightly better incorporation behavior including significant surface riding effects.     

Correlation of arsenic incorporation and its electrical activation in MBE HgCdTe

The behavior of arsenic for p-type doping of MBE HgCdTe layers has been studied for various annealing temperatures and arsenic doping concentrations. We have demonstrated that arsenic is in-situ incorporated into HgCdTe layers during MBE growth. The carrier concentration has been measured by the Van der Pauw technique, and the total arsenic concentration has been determined by secondary ion mass spectroscopy. After annealing at 250°C under an Hg over pressure, As-doped HgCdTe layers show highly compensated n-type properties and the carrier concentration is approximately constant (∼mid 10¹⁵ cm⁻³) until the total arsenic concentration in the HgCdTe layers approach mid 10¹⁷ cm⁻³. The source of n-type behavior does not appear to be associated with arsenic dopants, such as arsenic atoms occupying Hg vacancy sites, but rather unidentified structural defects acting as donors. When the total arsenic concentration is above mid 10¹⁷ cm⁻³, the carrier concentration shows a dependence on the arsenic concentration while remaining n-type. We conjecture that the increase in n-type behavior may be due to donor arsenic tetramers or donor tetramer clusters. Above a total arsenic concentration of 1∼2×10¹⁸ cm⁻³, after annealing at 300°C, the arsenic acceptor activation ratio rapidly decreases below 100% with increasing arsenic concentration and is smaller than that after annealing at 450°C. The electrically inactive arsenic is inferred to be in the form of neutral arsenic tetramer clusters incorporated during the MBE growth. Annealing at 450°C appears to supply enough thermal energy to break some of the bonds of neutral arsenic tetramer clusters so that the separated arsenic atoms could occupy Te sites and behave as acceptors. However, the number of arsenic atoms on Te sites is saturated at ∼2×10¹⁸ cm⁻³, possibly due to a limitation of its solid solubility in HgCdTe.     

Carbon doped GaAs grown in low pressure-metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy using carbon tetrabromide

Carbon tetrabromide was used as carbon source for heavily p-doped GaAs in low pressure metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE). The efficiency of carbon incorporation was investigated at temperatures between 550 and 670°C, at V/III ratios from 1 to 50 and carbon tetrabromide partial pressures from 0.01 to 0.03 Pa. Hole concentrations from 8 × 10¹⁷ to 5 × 10¹⁹ cm⁻³ in as-grown layers were obtained. After annealing in nitrogen atmosphere at 450°C, a maximum hole concentration of 9 × 10¹⁹ cm⁻³ and a mobility of 87 cm²/Vs was found. At growth temperatures below 600°C, traces of bromine were detected in the layers. Photoluminescence mapping revealed an excellent doping homogeneity. Thus, CBr₄ is found to be a suitable carbon dopant source in MOVPE.     

Comparative study between electrical, optical and structural properties of annealed heavily carbon doped GaAs

Heavily C-doped GaAs epilayers have been grown by atmospheric pressure metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy with hole concentration ranging from 2×10¹⁹ to 1.6×10²⁰ cm⁻³. In order to study the stability of C acceptors over this range, the films have been annealed at 810 °C for 10 min under two mixture gas AsH₃+H₂ or only N₂. Annealing of the layers resulted in a decrease in carrier concentration, carrier mobility and lattice mismatch with undoped GaAs. The lattice matching conditions of C-doped GaAs layers were systematically investigated by using X-ray high-resolution diffraction space mapping. The comparison between electrical and structural before and after annealing of layers properties indicates that the simultaneous decrease of carrier concentrations, Hall mobility and mismatch is probably related to an increase of compensation. Basing on a theoretical calculation of mobility as a function of hole concentration and Vegard's law, we estimate that the compensation comes from the formation of (C-C)⁺_[100] interstitial couples. This fact does not exclude definitively the possibility of the formation of other species such as H-C_As especially for hole concentration lower than 5×10¹⁹ cm⁻³. An annealing under AsH₃+H₂ ameliorates the crystalline properties contrarily to an annealing under N₂. The optical properties have been investigated using Raman spectroscopy. Two main Raman features are observed before and after annealing of the layers: the longitudinal-optic (LO) phonon mode and the coupled plasmon-LO phonon (LOPC). As for as grown layers, the intensity ratio I_LOPC/I_LO between the intensity of LOPC peak and the LO peak increases by increasing the hole concentration. This ratio is about 1 after an annealing of layers under AsH₃+H₂. An unusual change of I_LOPC/I_LO ratio is observed in samples annealed under N₂. Indeed, for high doping (∼10²⁰ cm⁻³) the ratio I_LOPC/I_LO<1 and for relatively low doping (∼2×10¹⁹ cm⁻³) the ratio I_LOPC/I_LO>1. This behaviour is probably related to the high sensibility of Raman measurement not only to the hole concentration change but also to the surface quality.     

Solvent-vapor induced self-assembly of a conjugated polymer: A correlation between solvent nature and transistor performance

A systematical investigation on solvent-vapor annealing in polymer thin film transistors is performed using a thiazolothiazole-bithiazole conjugated polymer as the active layer. Film morphology, packing order and device performance are closely related to polarity and solubility parameter of the annealing solvent and annealing time. The formation of highly ordered and closely connected fibrillar domains is realized by using a solvent with similar solubility parameter and polarity to the conjugated polymer. Field-effect transistors based on pristine polymer films exhibit a highest charge carrier mobility of 0.0067 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹. After solvent vapor annealing with THF for 48 h, the mobility boosts up to 0.075 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹. This correlation between solvent polarity, solubility parameter and film morphology, packing order and mobility provides a useful guideline towards high performance polymer thin film transistors with solvent-vapor annealing method.     

Chlorine-doped CdS thin films from CdCl<Subscript>2</Subscript>-mixed CdS powder

The CdS:Cl thin films have been prepared using thermally evaporated, CdCl₂-mixed CdS powder at 200°C substrate temperature. The percentage of CdCl₂ in the mixture varied from 0% to 0.20%. The electrical properties and the grain size of the deposited films were investigated. The results show that light doping, resistivity, carrier concentration, and mobility follow Seto’s model for polycrystalline material. However, with heavy doping, these properties undergo a saturation trend. The saturation behavior can be understood in terms of the rapid formation of the A-center complexes in the films. The deposited films were annealed at 250°C and 300°C. The resistivity of pure and lightly doped CdS films increased with annealing temperature, whereas carrier concentration and mobility in these films decreased. However, for the higher doping concentrations, the resistivity decreased, whereas carrier concentration and mobility showed improvement. These changes in electrical properties of the deposited films with annealing and doping concentration are attributed to a reduction in the lattice defect sites in CdS upon annealing. The experimental results are interpreted in terms of a modified version of Seto’s model for polycrystalline materials.     

Modulation Doping Leads to Optimized Thermoelectric Properties in n-Type Bi6Cu2Se4O6 due to Interface Effects

Heterogeneous composites consisting of Bi₆Cu₂Se_3.6Cl_0.4O₆ and Bi₂O₂Se are prepared according to the concept of modulation doping. With prominently increased carrier mobility and almost unchanged effective mass, the electrical transport properties are considerably optimized resulting in a peak power factor ≈1.8 µW cm⁻¹ K⁻² at 873 K, although the carrier concentration is slightly deteriorated. Meanwhile, the lattice thermal conductivity is lowered to ≈0.62 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹ due to the introduction of the second phase. The modified Self-consistent Effective Medium Theory is utilized to explain the deeper mechanism of modulation doping. The enhancement of apparent carrier mobility is derived from the highly active phase interfaces as fast carrier transport channels, while the reduced apparent thermal conductivity is ascribed to the existence of thermal resistance at the phase interfaces. Ultimately, an optimized ZT ≈0.23 is obtained at 873 K in Bi₆Cu₂Se_3.6Cl_0.4O₆ + 13% Bi₂O₂Se. This research demonstrates the effectiveness of modulation doping for optimizing thermoelectric properties once again, and provides the direct microstructure observation and consistent theoretical model calculation to emphasize the role of interface effects in modulation doping, which should be probably applicable to other thermoelectrics.     

Relaxing the Conductivity/Transparency Trade‐Off in MOCVD ZnO Thin Films by Hydrogen Plasma

Increasing the conductivity of polycrystalline zinc oxide films without impacting the transparency is a key aspect in the race to find affordable and high quality material as replacement of indium‐containing oxides. Usually, ZnO film conductivity is provided by a high doping and electron concentration, detrimental to transparency, because of free carrier absorption. Here we show that hydrogen post‐deposition plasma treatment applied to ZnO films prepared by metalorganic low‐pressure chemical vapor deposition allows a relaxation of the constraints of the conductivity/transparency trade‐off. Upon treatment, an increase in electron concentration and Hall mobility is observed. The mobility reaches high values of 58 and 46 cm²V^?1s^?1 for 2‐μm‐ and 350‐nm‐thick films, respectively, without altering the visible range transparency. From a combination of opto‐electronic measurements, hydrogen is found, in particular, to reduce electron trap density at grain boundaries. After treatment, the values for intragrain or optical mobility are found similar to Hall mobility, and therefore, electron conduction is found to be no longer limited by the phenomenon of grain boundary scattering. This allows to achieve mobilities close to 60 cm²V^?1s^?1, even in ultra‐transparent films with carrier concentration as low as 10¹⁹ cm^?3.     

Effect of annealing on the morphology and optoelectrical characteristics of ZnO thin films grown by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy

The dependence of characteristics of plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy-grown ZnO thin films on different postgrowth annealing conditions was investigated. It was found that, under oxygen atmosphere, annealing temperature can profoundly affect the morphological, electrical, and optical properties of ZnO thin films. In particular, the surface morphology changed from a relatively smooth surface before annealing to various island morphologies after annealing above 800°C for samples grown directly on sapphire without a buffer layer. It is speculated that intrinsic stress due to lattice mismatch drives the island formation and the high temperature provides the energy needed for this surface rearrangement. Single-field Hall-effect measurement showed that the carrier concentration improved by an order of magnitude and the mobility increased from about 30 cm²/Vs to ∼70 cm²/Vs by annealing at 750°C. Variable-field Hall effect shows that a model with two carriers, one a degenerate low-mobility electron and the other a higher mobility non-degenerate electron, is needed to explain the transport properties of the thin film. Analysis indicates that annealing at 750°C decreased the carrier concentration and increased the mobility for the high-mobility carrier. Annealing also led to a significant improvement in photoluminescence, with temperatures of ∼750–850°C yielding the best results.     

Highly transparent and conducting zinc oxide films deposited by activated reactive evaporation

Highly transparent and conducting undoped zinc oxide films have been obtained with a best resistivity of ～1.1 × 10^-3 Ω cm, a carrier density of ～1.5 × 10²⁰ cm^?3 and a mobility of ～38 cm²V^{?1s ?1}. These were produced by activated reactive evaporation at a deposition rate of 2 to 8Å/s with a substrate temperature ≤200° C. The films deposited by this process were found to have resistivities that were thickness independent and also were relatively insensitive to deposition parameters. In terms of conductivity, it was found that films deposited at higher temperatures (T > 300°+ C) were always inferior to the films deposited below 200° C. High temperature vacuum annealing (350° C) significantly degraded the resistivity of the undoped films deposited at low temperature; this was attributable to a drop in both the electron concentration and the mobility. Aluminum doping was found to be able to stabilize the electron concentration while the drop in mobility was found to be related to the choice of substrate.     

Effect of copper and chlorine on the properties of SiO2 encapsulated polycrystalline CdSe films

The effects of different copper doping concentrations on the properties of SiO₂ encapsulated CdSe films have been investigated. Two methods were used to dope the films with copper: ion implantation and diffusion from a surface layer. The room temperature dark resistivity of films annealed in oxygen at 450°C was found to increase as the copper concentration was increased until a maximum resistivity of 10⁸ ohm cm occurred at a copper concentration of 10²⁰ atoms cm⁻³. The room temperature resistivity in the light was found to be independent of the copper concentration and whether the films were annealed in argon or oxygen. During annealing the grains grew from 0.03 μm to 0.3 μm and this growth was independent of the doping or the annealing ambient. The energy levels, carrier mobilities, and microstructure of the annealed films were dependent on the method of doping. The ion implanted films had an additional energy level at 0.33 eV and their mobility was a factor of 4 smaller than films doped by the surface diffusion method, whose mobilities were 20 to 35 cm²V⁻¹ s⁻¹. The addition of chlorine to copper doped films had no effect on either the resistivity or photosensitivity but slowed the response times of the photocurrent by a factor of 10. No energy levels were observed which could be associated with the copper nor was the copper found to affect the density of the observed intrinsic levels at 0.65 and 1.1 eV.     

Characterization of <Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis>-Type and <Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis>-Type Long-Wave InAs/InAsSb Superlattices

The influence of dopant concentration on both in-plane mobility and minority carrier lifetime in long-wave infrared InAs/InAsSb superlattices (SLs) was investigated. Unintentially doped (n-type) and various concentrations of Be-doped (p-type) SLs were characterized using variable-field Hall and photoconductive decay techniques. Minority carrier lifetimes in p-type InAs/InAsSb SLs are observed to decrease with increasing carrier concentration, with the longest lifetime at 77 K determined to be 437 ns, corresponding to a measured carrier concentration of p ₀ = 4.1 × 10¹⁵ cm^?3. Variable-field Hall technique enabled the extraction of in-plane hole, electron, and surface electron transport properties as a function of temperature. In-plane hole mobility is not observed to change with doping level and increases with reducing temperature, reaching a maximum at the lowest temperature measured of 30 K. An activation energy of the Be-dopant is determined to be 3.5 meV from Arrhenius analysis of hole concentration. Minority carrier electrons populations are suppressed at the highest Be-doping levels, but mobility and concentration values are resolved in lower-doped samples. An average surface electron conductivity of 3.54 × 10^?4 S at 30 K is determined from the analysis of p-type samples. Effects of passivation treatments on surface conductivity will be presented.     

Novel field‐effect passivation for nanostructured Si solar cells using interfacial sulfur incorporation

Surface passivation of a nanostructured Si solar cells plays a crucial role in collecting photogenerated carriers by mitigating carrier recombination at surface defect sites. Interface modification by additional sulfur (S) incorporation is proposed to enhance the field‐effect passivation performance. Here, we report that simple annealing in a H₂S ambient induced additional negative fixed charges at the interface between atomic‐layer‐deposited Al₂O₃ and nanostructured Si. Annealing at various temperatures allowed us to control the S concentration and the fixed charge density. The optimized S incorporation at the interface significantly enhanced the negative fixed charge density and the minority carrier lifetime up to ~5.9 × 10¹² cm⁻² and ~780 μs, respectively. As a result, the internal quantum efficiency was nearly two times higher in the blue response region than that of control cells without S incorporation. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effect of high-temperature annealing on GaInP/GaAs HBT structures grown by LP-MOVPE

We have investigated the effect of high-temperature annealing on device performance of GaInP/GaAs HBTs using a wide range of MOVPE growth parameters for the C-doped base layer. Carbon doping was achieved either via TMG and AsH₃ only or by using an extrinsic carbon source. High-temperature annealing causes degradation of carbon-doped GaAs in terms of minority carrier properties even at doping levels of p=1 × 10¹⁹ cm⁻³. The measured reduction in electron lifetime and luminescence intensity correlates with HBT device results. It is shown that the critical temperature where material degradation starts is both a function of doping method and carbon concentration.     

Influence of the initial boron doping level on the boron atom distribution arising as a result of heat treatment in silicon implanted with boron ions

The dependence of the boron distribution on the initial boron concentration in the range (1–9)×10¹⁹ cm⁻³ was investigated by secondary-ion mass-spectrometry (SIMS) after heat treatment of boron-ion implanted silicon at 900 °C. It was found that when the initial boron concentration exceeds the solubility limit at the annealing temperature used, two additional peaks arise in the boron concentration profiles at the boundaries of the ion-implantation disordered region. It is suggested that their appearance in these regions at high doping levels is due to clustering of excess interstitial impurity atoms not built into the lattice sites following displacement of boron atoms from the lattice sites by intrinsic interstitials that leave the disordered region. Fiz. Tekh. Poluprovodn. 32, 417–420 (April 1998)     

Incorporation and Activation of Arsenic Dopant in Single-Crystal CdTe Grown on Si by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

We report the use of molecular beam epitaxy to achieve p-type doping of CdTe grown on Si(211) substrates, by use of an arsenic cracker and post-growth annealing. A high hole density in CdTe is crucial for high efficiency II–VI-based solar cells. We measured the density of As in single-crystal CdTe by secondary ion mass spectroscopy; this showed that high As incorporation is achieved at low growth temperatures. Progressively higher incorporation was observed during low-temperature growth, presumably because of degradation of crystal quality with incorporation of As at such defect sites as dislocations and defect complexes. After As activation annealing under Hg overpressure, hole concentrations were obtained from Hall measurements. The highest doping level was ～2.3 × 10¹⁶ cm^?3, and near-10¹⁶ cm^?3 doping was readily reproduced. The activation efficiency was ～50%, but further optimization of the growth and annealing conditions is likely to improve this value.     

Synergistic Use of Pyridine and Selenophene in a Diketopyrrolopyrrole‐Based Conjugated Polymer Enhances the Electron Mobility in Organic Transistors

To achieve semiconducting materials with high electron mobility in organic field‐effect transistors (OFETs), low‐lying energy levels (the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO)) and favorable molecular packing and ordering are two crucial factors. Here, it is reported that the incorporation of pyridine and selenophene into the backbone of a diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP)‐based copolymer produces a high‐electron‐mobility semiconductor, PDPPy‐Se. Compared with analogous polymers based on other DPP derivatives and selenophene, PDPPy‐Se features a lower LUMO that can decrease the electron transfer barrier for more effective electron injection, and simultaneously a lower HOMO that, however, can increase the hole transfer barrier to suppress the hole injection. Combined with thermal annealing at 240 °C for thin film morphology optimization to achieve large‐scale crystallite domains with tight molecular packing for effective charge transport along the conducting channel, OFET devices fabricated with PDPPy‐Se exhibit an n‐type‐dominant performance with an electron mobility (μ_e) as high as 2.22 cm² V^?1 s^?1 and a hole/electron mobility ratio (μ_h/μ_e) of 0.26. Overall, this study demonstrates a simple yet effective approach to boost the electron mobility in organic transistors by synergistic use of pyridine and selenophene in the backbone of a DPP‐based copolymer.     

Heavily doped GaAs:Te layers grown by MOVPE using diisopropyl telluride as a source

The capabilities of GaAs epitaxial layers extremely heavily doped with tellurium by metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy using diisopropyl telluride as a source are studied. It is shown that tellurium incorporation into GaAs occurs to an atomic concentration of 10²¹ cm^–3 without appreciable diffusion and segregation effects. Good carrier concentrations (2 × 10¹⁹ cm^–3) and specific contact resistances of non-alloyed ohmic contacts (1.7 × 10^–6 Ω cm²) give grounds to use such layers to create non-alloyed ohmic contacts in electronic devices. A sharp decrease in the electrical activity of Te atoms, a decrease in the electron mobility, and an increase in the contact resistance at atomic concentrations above 2 × 10²⁰ cm^–3 are detected.