Specific features of the recombination loss of the photocurrent in n-TiN/p-Si anisotype heterojunctions

Photosensitive n-TiN/p-Si heterostructures are fabricated by reactive magnetron sputtering. The heterostructures generate an open-circuit voltage of V _oc = 0.4 V and a short-circuit current of I _sc = 1.36 mA/cm² under illumination at 80 mW/cm². An analysis of the light current-voltage characteristic and quantum-yield spectrum demonstrate that the poor photoelectric parameters are due to recombination in the base region of the heterojunction and to the formation of a high-resistivity SiO₂ layer on the surface of polycrystalline silicon, which fails to provide high-quality passivation of surface states.