Hyperdoping by Ion Implantation for Extended Infrared Si p-n Photodiodes

The development of room-temperature extended infrared Si photodetectors is of great interest for integrated photonics, optical communications, sensing and medical imaging applications [1]. The typical peak photoresponse of traditional Si photodetectors is between 700 and 900 nm, which is mostly limited by the 1.12 eV-Si indirect band gap. Nevertheless, such intrinsic material limitation can be circumvented by introducing transition metals or chalcogens into the Si band gap at concentrations far above those obtained at equilibrium conditions [1, 2]. Ion implantation and short-time annealing have been the adopted methods in those approaches. This new class of hyperdoped materials with a donor impurity band has been postulated as a promising route to extend the Si photoresponse at the short-wavelength infrared spectral region [3].
In this work, we report steady-state room-temperature extended infrared p-n photodiodes at the two primary telecommunication wavelengths from single-crystalline Si hyperdoped with Se concentrations as high as 9×1020 cm-3, which are introduced by a robust and reliable non-equilibrium processing consisting of ion implantation followed by millisecond-range flash lamp annealing (FLA). The FLA approach in the millisecond range allows for a solid-phase epitaxy that has been reported to be superior to liquid-phase eExtended infrared photodetektorpitaxy induced during pulsed laser annealing [2]. The success of our devices is primarily based on the high quality of the developed n-type hyperdoped material, which is single-phase single crystal with high electrical activation, without surface segregation of Se atoms and with an optically flat surface. A detailed description of the working principle and performance of the photodiodes as well as the main features in the studied wavelength region is provided.
[1] J. P. Mailoa, A. J. Akey, C. B. Simmons, D. Hutchinson, J. Mathews, J. T. Sullivan, D. Recht, M. T. Winkler, J. S. Williams, J. M. Warrender, P. D. Persans, M. J. Aziz, and T. Buonassisi, Nat. Commun. 5, 3011 (2014).
[2] S. Zhou, F. Liu, S. Prucnal, K. Gao, M. Khalid, C. Baehtz, M. Posselt, W. Skorupa, and M. Helm, Sci. Rep. 5, 8329 (2015).
[3] I. Umezu, J. M. Warrender, S. Charnvanichborikarn, A. Kohno, J. S. Williams, M. Tabbal, D. G. Papazoglou, X. C.Zhang, and M. J. Aziz, J. Appl. Phys. 113, 213501 (2013).