Conductance in Microcrystalline B_bxC_x/Si Heterojunction Diodes

Abstract

Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposited boron carbide (B1-xCx) thin films are shown to be a potential electronic material suitable for high temperature devices. The boron carbide films make excellent p-n heteroj unction diodes with /i-type silicon substrates. The B1-xCx/Si heteroj unction diodes are demonstrated to have rectifying properties at temperatures above 200°C and reverse current is strongly dependent on the energy of the band gap of the boron carbide films.

The incorporation of Nickel and Phosphorus dopants into Boron-Carbon alloy thin films

“…Boron-carbon alloy thin films were deposited on n-type Si(111) substrates following procedures described in detail elsewhere [1,4,8,23]. Deposition of the films was performed in a custom-designed parallel plate 13.56 MHz radio-frequency PECVD reactor used in previous studies [1,4,23].…”

“…Deposition of the films was performed in a custom-designed parallel plate 13.56 MHz radio-frequency PECVD reactor used in previous studies [1,4,23]. The silicon substrates were n-type doped to 7 ×10 14 / cm 3 .…”

Nickel doping of boron–carbon alloy films and corresponding Fermi level shifts

“…1,[4][5][6] Deposition of the films was performed in a custom designed parallel plate 13.56 MHz rf PECVD reactor used in previous studies. 1,[4][5][6] Deposition of the films was performed in a custom designed parallel plate 13.56 MHz rf PECVD reactor used in previous studies.…”

Semiconducting boron-rich neutron detectors

“…It was not until the start of the 1990s that semiconducting B-C materials and electronic devices were created, by Dowben and his colleagues, and this semiconducting form of B-C made by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) has thus far been micro-or nano-crystalline [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. As detailed elsewhere [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16], this material has composition near B 5 C and has properties that vary with B:C ratio. This semiconducting B 5 C has resistivity~10 10 ohm.cm undoped, and can readily be "doped" n-type with associated changes in resistivity (at least~10 3 to 10 8 ohm.cm) according to "dopant".…”

“…26,27], Liu [28] and as well as our own. We have used the very robust, microcrystalline [15], boron carbide semiconductor to make the first boron carbide heterojunction diodes with Si [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]14,16], the first boron carbide homojunction diodes [10], the first boron carbide transistors [11], and the first boron carbide tunnel diodes [10,12,13]. In the past year, we have made boron carbide heterojunction diodes with SiC substrates and demonstrated their performance as diodes to 350°C, limited essentially by experimental conditions [15].…”