Silicon PIN Diode Research Articles

A novel high-resolution technique for the study of deep energy levels in semiconductors based on computerized Laplace-DLTS

This paper describes a new computerized system for investigating deep levels in semiconductors by DLTS. We used a modified measurement mode, a new approach based on the inverse Laplace transform, and a new data processing algorithm. The developed method uses only a few transients derived and averaged from DLTS measurements at heating rates up to 2 °C/min, combined with low-frequency pulses. The paper presents data obtained for a phosphorus-doped silicon PIN diode, previously investigated using a conventional computerized DLTS system. Our new method allowed us to detect three electronic levels with energies of Ec – 0.53 eV, Ec – 0.39 eV, and Ec – 0.38 eV in less than 1 h, while the conventional DLTS system detected only two levels: Ec – 0.53 eV and Ec – 0.42eV. Thus, we have shown that the new approach drastically reduces the measurement time and increases the resolution.

MBE growth of highly sensitive silicon PIN diode with magnetic Mn-doped Ge quantum dots for photodetector and solar cell applications

MBE growth of highly sensitive silicon PIN diode with magnetic Mn-doped Ge quantum dots for photodetector and solar cell applications

The effect of temperature variation on the transient response of RF PIN diode limiters for very high frequency applications

AbstractThis work presents the effect of temperature change on the capacitance of silicon PIN diodes and the resulting change in performance of RF limiters at very high frequency (VHF). Device temperatures were varied between −25 ºC and 100 ºC, with small‐signal parameters (including device capacitance) extracted at regular temperature increments and bias voltages from −20 Vdc to +3 Vdc using a multi‐bias parameter extraction method. It was found that the junction capacitance of the four PIN diodes under investigation increases with temperature, as expected from carrier lifetime behaviour, while results also confirmed prior observations of an inverse relationship between forward‐biased series resistance and temperature. Devices were subsequently tested in two different limiter topologies through high‐power transient measurements. It was found that the combination of increased capacitance and decreased resistance with increasing temperature increases the transient spike leakage and decreases the flat leakage of a limiter. It was also concluded that, for VHF, an anti‐parallel topology provides the best performance over a wide range of temperatures.

Impact of Grain Boundaries on The Electrical Characteristics and Breakdown Behavior of Polycrystalline Silicon Pin Diodes: A Simulation Study

Impact of Grain Boundaries on The Electrical Characteristics and Breakdown Behavior of Polycrystalline Silicon Pin Diodes: A Simulation Study

Electrothermal power cycling of 15 kV SiC PiN diodes

Through extensive experimental measurements for the static and dynamic characteristics, the commercially available 15 kV Silicon Carbide (SiC) PiN diode are evaluated by power cycling. The forward voltage of diodes is used to indirectly measure the junction temperature. The SiC PiN diodes feature smaller die size, less reverse recovery charge and less on-resistance when compared to the commercially available closely rated Silicon PiN diodes. Nevertheless, during the power cycling experiments, the bipolar degradation and the degradation of contact metallization in SiC PiN diode gives rise to the increase of on-resistance even though its on-state losses is not as high as in the Silicon device. Such degradations are not observed from the Silicon PiN diode for the same junction temperature and the same high-temperature duration.

Lateral PIN Photodiode with Germanium and Silicon Layer on SOI Wafers

It has been verified through numerical simulations calibrated to experimental data the changes that the insertion of a germanium layer can bring to the electrical power generation of a silicon solar cell. The insertion of a germanium layer on top or below a silicon PIN diode designed in SOI technology has been considered. Results showed that different semiconductor characteristics (bandgap, mobility, and absorption coefficients) result in a general improvement in the solar cell performance, being able to reach a power 136% greater than the device without the heterogeneous layer. In the evaluated device the average power was improved from 9.43 nW to 14.92 nW with the Ge layer insertion. Besides that, the analysis has allowed for a better understanding of the phenomena that occur in the photogeneration of a cell with a heterojunction between germanium and silicon.

Characterization of Thermal Behavior of a Silicon PIN Diode Package in a RF Power Limiter

Characterization of Thermal Behavior of a Silicon PIN Diode Package in a RF Power Limiter

Non-volatile electrically programmable integrated photonics with a 5-bit operation

Scalable programmable photonic integrated circuits (PICs) can potentially transform the current state of classical and quantum optical information processing. However, traditional means of programming, including thermo-optic, free carrier dispersion, and Pockels effect result in either large device footprints or high static energy consumptions, significantly limiting their scalability. While chalcogenide-based non-volatile phase-change materials (PCMs) could mitigate these problems thanks to their strong index modulation and zero static power consumption, they often suffer from large absorptive loss, low cyclability, and lack of multilevel operation. Here, we report a wide-bandgap PCM antimony sulfide (Sb2S3)-clad silicon photonic platform simultaneously achieving low loss (<1.0 dB), high extinction ratio (>10 dB), high cyclability (>1600 switching events), and 5-bit operation. These Sb2S3-based devices are programmed via on-chip silicon PIN diode heaters within sub-ms timescale, with a programming energy density of sim 10,{fJ}/n{m}^{3}. Remarkably, Sb2S3 is programmed into fine intermediate states by applying multiple identical pulses, providing controllable multilevel operations. Through dynamic pulse control, we achieve 5-bit (32 levels) operations, rendering 0.50 ± 0.16 dB per step. Using this multilevel behavior, we further trim random phase error in a balanced Mach-Zehnder interferometer.

FEM-based analysis of avalanche ruggedness of high voltage SiC Merged-PiN-Schottky and Junction-Barrier-Schottky diodes

Through comprehensive experimental measurements and TCAD simulation, it is shown that the avalanche ruggedness of SiC MPS & JBS diodes outperforms that of closely rated Silicon PiN diodes taking advantage of the wide-bandgap properties of SiC which leads to a high ionization and activation energy given the strong covalent bonds. Although the MPS diode structure favours a high reverse blocking voltage with small leakage current and a high current conduction, the localise current crowding caused by the multiple P+ implanted region leads to the avalanche breakdown at lower load currents than the SiC JBS diode. The results of Silvaco TCAD Finite Element modellings have a good agreement with the experimental measurements, indicating that SiC JBS diode can withstand the high junction temperature induced by avalanche in line with the calculated avalanche energy.

Self-powered silicon PIN neutron detector based on triboelectric nanogenerator

Silicon PIN neutron detectors play an important role in nuclear science with advantages such as small size, light weight, low cost, and mature manufacturing process. This paper proposes a self-powered neutron detection system based on a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) and silicon PIN diode for the first time. The proposed environmentally efficient and low-cost TENG is connected to the detector through a rectifier bridge circuit. When the TENG powered silicon neutron detector is irradiated, the PIN diode generates defects in the silicon body, which leads to a decrease in the lifetime of excess carriers. The neutron dose can be measured by monitoring the change of the terminal voltage of the PIN diode.

A novel design of a silicon PIN diode for increasing the breakdown voltage

This paper presents a new structure consisting of a silicon PIN junction with high breakdown voltage and low dark current with two Guard rings. To achieve the optimal structure, the effect of the parameters on the breakdown voltage and the dark current of the device has been investigated and simulated. The intrinsic thickness and impurity, the penetration depth of the active area and guard rings, location and number of guard rings, thickness, and distance between guard rings are the effective parameters of the device's breakdown voltage and dark current. In the proposed structure by placing two guard rings around the active area, the results show that an electric field is distributed at the edge of the active area between the guard rings, which leads to an increase of 292.62 V in breakdown voltage compared to the device without a guard ring.

Signal processing and noise analysis on realistic radiation detector model

In this paper, equations for signal processing and noise analysis were derived for a realistic radiation detector model, and simulations were performed under various conditions. Realistic radiation detector model was composed of silicon PIN diode detector, Charge Sensitive Amplifier (CSA), and CR-RC2 shaper. For the realistic CSA model, a finite bandwidth model with a single pole response amplifier was presented and related equations were derived. Through realistic CSA model, it was possible to calculate the signal distortion phenomena such as charge transfer loss and ballistic deficit of the actual circuit and the noise value of the CSA output stage. For the realistic shaper model, signal and noise transfer functions were derived for the CR-RC2 circuit with non-inverting amplifier. In particular, the equation for the internal noise of the shaper, which has been ignored in the current noise analysis, was derived. Through this, it was possible to analyze the effects of amplifier characteristics, resistance value, and signal gain for each stage on the overall noise in the radiation detector of the CSA–shaper structure. For comparison with the simulation, a circuit equivalent to the realistic radiation detector model was made and measurements under the same conditions as the simulation were made. As a result of the verification experiment, the measured values matched well with simulations under various conditions, and through this, the validity of this model was verified. Signal processing and noise analysis were mainly performed for PCB circuits using commercial components, but also included content for CMOS front-end detectors. This model consists only of analytic formulas for the time domain function and the transfer function, nonetheless it has been shown to give accurate results.

High-performance silicon PIN diode switches in the 2-µm wave band.

The 2-µm wave band has attracted significant research interest due to its potential applications for next-generation high-capacity optical communication and sensing. As the key component, fast optical switches are essential for an advanced and reconfigurable optical network. Motivated by this prospect, we propose and demonstrate two typical silicon PIN diode switches at 2 µm. One is based on a coupled microring resonator (CMRR), and the other is based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with a push-pull-like configuration. The measured insertion loss of the CMRR switch is <2.5 dB, and the cross talk is <-10.8 dB. The insertion loss of the MZI switch is <2 dB, and the cross talk is <-15.6 dB. The switch times of these two structures are both lower than 12.5 ns.

Preliminary benchmarks and analysis of boundary conditions in a trenched microstructured silicon radiation detector

Microstructured neutron detectors have the benefit of enhanced neutron detection efficiency as compared to planar devices, achieved by etching 6LiF-filled trenches on the top surface of a silicon PIN diode. This sensor geometry results in a complex electric field distribution and depletion characteristics within the diode under reverse bias. For the first time on record, the effects of a fixed oxide charge on the microstructured device depletion characteristics and mobile carrier transport is investigated. Prototype detectors were fabricated with non-conformal surface doping. Capacitance voltage and current voltage measurements were performed for these prototypes and compared with COMSOL Multiphysics simulations. A spectral response from an 241Am alpha particle source was acquired and analyzed. It was found that monoenergetic alpha particles produce three prominent peaks in the pulse height spectrum output by the device. The peaks were confirmed by simulations to correlate with dead layers and incident trajectories into the microstructure. It was also found that significant differences in pulse rise time result, corresponding with events arriving in a low-field region in the fins and a high-field region in the bulk. Geant4 was utilized for radiation transport, interaction modeling, and benchmarking the spectral data. The results of this simulation work provide confidence in the ability to attain and benchmark electrical characteristics and spectral data for semiconductor radiation detectors employing complex microstructures.

An RHCP and LHCP polarization reconfigurable microstrip antenna for ISM band smart city applications

Abstract In this article, a microstrip antenna having circular polarization switching capability is presented. This antenna consists of a circular-shaped radiating patch with a single co-axial probe feed line. The polarization reconfigurability is achieved by introducing four symmetrical U-shaped slots and silicon PIN diodes on the radiating patch. A prototype of the design is fabricated on an FR-4 substrate with overall dimension of 70 × 70 × 1.6 mm to verify the performances. The measured results of the antenna exhibit an impedance bandwidth (S 11 &lt; −10 dB) of 5% in the frequency range of 2.37–2.49 GHz. The maximum gain of the antenna is found to be 2.99 dBic at 2.43 GHz. The antenna shows stable radiation performances at 2.4 GHz with 4.1% of 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth, and more than 105° of 3-dB axial ratio beamwidth for both right-hand circular polarization and left -hand circular polarization which make it suitable for ISM band Smart city applications.

An Electronically Reconfigurable Single to Dual-Band Bandstop Filter for RFID and Modern Wireless Communication Application

The excessive demand of electronically reconfigurable Band Stop Filter (BSF) for radio frequency identification (RFID) and for reducing the Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) for modern wireless communication is highly evident. Thus, a new electronically reconfigurable stub topology-based BSF is proposed. The response of the BSF filter can be switched from single to dual-band. The switching is achieved by a silicon PIN diode (BAP70-03) and a biasing network. When the switch is OFF, it gives a single-band bandstop response with the bandwidth of 1.70GHz -5.74GHz. When the switch is ON, it offers dual-band bandstop response with the bandwidth of 1.42GHz -1.59GHz &#x0026; 4.82GHz &#x2013; 5.73GHz, and between both stopbands, the passband of 1.96GHz &#x2013; 4.56GHz facilitates mobile communication (3G, 4G, and 5G). Validation of the |S| parameter of the proposed reconfigurable filter is carried out using the filter&#x2019;s transmission line model (TLM) for both the ON and OFF state of the PIN diode. Consequently, even and odd mode impedance is calculated analytically, and a lumped equivalent circuit model of the proposed BSF filter is extracted. The simulation results of electromagnetic (EM)/distributed model, equivalent lumped circuit model, and measured results of fabricated prototype reconfigurable BSF filter are in good agreement.

Fabrication of silicon PIN diode with SiGe junction for soft x-ray detector using low-temperature technology

In this paper, a low-temperature technology was introduced for the fabrication of PIN photodiode. A double dielectric oxide layers were prepared by nitric acid oxidation and PECVD, respectively. The selective epitaxial growth of SiGe thin layers, which were in-situ doped in a reactive thermal chemical vapor deposition system, were applied for the preparation of PN junction and high-low junction. A SiNx passivation layer combined with a post-annealing was adopted to lower the reverse current. The temperature was controlled below 450 °C for the whole fabrication process. Finally, the reverse current of 0.7 nA was achieved at room temperature for our 5 mm-diameter PIN detector and the energy resolution of 240 eV was obtained at 5.9 keV, −60 °C. The results indicated that the low-temperature technology is suitable for the fabrication of high quality PIN detector, and the cost can be reduced effectively.

Altitude dependent failure rate calculation for high power semiconductor devices in aviation electronics

The electric power usage in aircraft has reached 1 MW. Therefore, use of high power semiconductor devices expected to increase in avionics. Single event burnout failure happens when power devices operating in blocking condition interact with the cosmic radiation. The failure rate in power devices is more in airplane altitude compare to terrestrial operation. In this paper, the failure rate of high power silicon PiN diode is evaluated when operating in airplane altitude due to the interaction of cosmic ray neutrons. The proposed formula has the unique feature of decoupling between failure cross section and cosmic ray neutron flux. This makes it possible to calculate the failure rate under any cosmic radiation environment using the proposed failure rate formulation.

Building a VME spectrometer and testing Si PIN diode detector: a feasibility study for the first nuclear astrophysical experiments using a pelletron

This work presents the logical design, connections between NIM and VME elec­tronic modules, and the data acquisition programming to build a complete detector readout system. The test experiments were carried out with commercial silicon PIN diode S3590-09 bare detectors bombarded by charged particles from a 241Am α-source and Rutherford elastic backscattering (RBS) protons induced by 2.5 MeV proton beam bombarding on an Au-on-glass target, and with a NaI scintillation detector bombarded by gammas from 27Al(p, γ)28Si reaction with proton beam energy of 1.379 MeV. The test showed that the spectrometer operated steadily and its versatility for different kind of detector. The energy resolutions of the Si diodes were less than 0.5% energy of a charged particle, which satisfies the foreseen requirement for the upcoming experiments.

AIRDOS — open-source PIN diode airborne dosimeter

This article introduces a new open-source dosimeter AIRDOS intended for measurements on board aircraft. In-flight measurement of a mixed radiation field is a challenging deal that requires a small low-power-consumption battery-operated lightweight device with long endurance. A new innovative electronic design with a silicon PIN diode used as a sensor is presented, including full description and manufacturing documentation. The device was verified by measurements and compared with reference dosimeters widely used in aircraft dosimetry, such as Liulin MDU and HAWK TEPC. A comparison of the measurements with a computation model CARI 7 was performed as well. All the comparisons yield positive results within known errors. The new design of the dosimeter has a very satisfactory performance in terms of battery life and does not need calibration after manufacturing or recalibration after a long time of usage. Open-source design predetermines AIRDOS for future improvements and open-science.