Photo-electrical Characterization of New CuAlNi/n-Si/Al Schottky Photodiode Fabricated by Coating Thin-Film Smart Material

Abstract

Micro/nano scale thin-film shape memory alloys (SMAs) have been used in many different miniaturized systems. Using them as thin-film metal components in fabrication of Schottky photodiodes has started a few years ago. In this work, a new SMA-photodiode device with CuAlNi/n-Si/Al structure was produced by coating nano-thick CuAlNi SMA film onto n-Si wafer substrate via thermal evaporation. The photoelectrical I-V, C-V and I-t photodiode signalization tests were performed under dark and varied artifical light power intensities in room conditions. It was observed that the new device exhibited photoconductive, photovoltaic and capacitive behaviors. By using conventional I-V method, the diode parameters such as electrical ideality factor (n), Schottky barrier height (ϕb) and rectification ratio (RR) of the produced photodevice for the condition of dark environment were computed as 12.5, 0.599 eV and 1266, respectively. As good figure of merits, the photodiode’s performance parameters of responsivity (Rph), photosensivity (%PS) and spesific detectivity (D*) maxima values determined for at -5 V reverse voltage bias and under 100 mW/cm2 of light power intensity condition are as 0.030 A/W (or 30 mA/W), 18693 and 1.33×1010 Jones, respectively. The current conduction mechanism analysis revealed that the space charge limited conduction (SCLC) mechanism is the dominant current conduction mechanism. By the drawn reverse squared C-2-V plots, the values of diffusion potential (Vd), donor concentration (ND), Fermi level (EF) and also barrier height (ϕb) were determined for the SMA-photodiode. The results indicated that the new SMA-photodiode device can be useful in optoelectronic communication systems and photosensing applications.