FIR photovoltaic effect in a boron-doped silicon structure

Abstract

A new FIR photovoltaic effect, which does not depend on incident radiation intensity, is found at low temperatures in modulated unipolar boron-doped silicon structure. It is shown that the effect originates from an asymmetric ballistic hole transport across the low doped layer due to fast trapping process within the upper Hubbard impurity band of the doped layer. The analysis of the temperature dependence of the photovoltage gives the Fermi energy in the impurity band.