Avalanche photocurrent multiplication in an amorphous SiC:H/amorphous Si:H/crystalline Si heterojunction photodiode

Abstract

Photocurrent multiplication in amorphous SiC:H/amorphous Si:H/crystalline Si heterojunction photodiodes was studied, which were fabricated on n-type crystalline Si substrates with different resistivities using an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (CVD) system. Photocurrent multiplication was observed only in the sample of resistivity of 0.4 /spl Omega//spl middot/cm. The dependence on the incident light wavelength suggests that the photocurrent increase was caused by the avalanche multiplication in the amorphous Si:H layer.