Surface Structure and Current Transport Property of Boron and Phosphorus Co-Doped Silicon Nanocrystals

Abstract

Silicon (Si) nanocrystals (NCs) with high boron (B) and phosphorus (P) concentration shells are dispersible in polar solvents without organic ligands. In order to understand the mechanism of the solution dispersibility, the surface structure is studied by infrared absorption spectroscopy. It is shown that water molecules are adsorbed at the B–oxygen (O) bond sites on NC surface with high hydrogen bond strength, and thus B and P co-doped Si-NCs are a kind of hydrate containing large amounts of water molecules (Si-NC·xH2O). The current transport properties of Si-NC films made from the solutions are studied. It is found that the conductivity is very sensitive to the amount of adsorbed water molecules and changes by 8 orders of magnitude. The high affinity of the NC surface with water molecules is considered to be the origin of the high sensitivity.