Correlation Between Lateral Photovoltaic Effect and Conductivity in p-type Silicon Substrates

Abstract

Department of Chemistry, Myongji University, Yongin 449-728, KoreaReceived March 11, 2013, Accepted March 26, 2013The lateral photovoltaic effect (LPE) can be observed in semiconductors by irradiating a light spot positionbetween electrodes on sample’s surface. Because lateral photovoltaic voltage (LPV) is sensitively changed bylight spot position, a LPE device has been tried as a position-sensitive detector. This study discusses thecorrelation between LPV and conductivity in p-type silicon and nano-structured Au deposited p-type silicon(nano-Au silicon), respectively. Conductivity measurement of the sample was carried out using the four-wiremethod to eliminate contact resistance, and conductivity dependence on LPV was simultaneously measured bychanging the light irradiation position. The result showed a strong correlation between conductivity and LPVin the p-type silicon sample. The correlation coefficient was 0.87. The correlation coefficient between LPV andconductivity for the nano-Au silicon sample was 0.41.Key Words : Lateral photovoltaic effect (LPE), Lateral photovoltaic voltage (LPV), Conductivity, Correlationcoefficient, Four-wire method IntroductionThe lateral photovoltaic effect (LPE) has been popularlyused in semiconductor systems