Controlled ion beam hyperdoping of silicon nanowires

The hyperdoping of semiconductors consists of introducing dopant concentrations far above the equilibrium solubility limits. This results in a broadening of dopant energy levels into an impurity or intermediate band. We have recently demonstrated that hyperdoping bulk Si with Se shows promise for Si-based short-wavelength infrared photodetectors [1]. Lately, silicon nanowires (NWs) have gained increasing importance as building blocks for nanodevices like field-effect transistors, light emitting devices and photovoltaic cells [2, 3]. Therefore, the comparison between hyperdoping Si nanowires and bulk Si is a common issue to be examined, which comes along with the transition from a bulk material to semiconductor NWs.
In this work, we report on non-equilibrium processing for controlled hyperdoping of Si/SiO2 core/shell nanowires previously synthesized by the vapor-liquid-solid method. Our approach is based on Se implantation of the upper half of NWs followed by millisecond flash lamp annealing, which allows for a bottom-up template-assisted recrystallization of the amorphized parts of the NWs via explosive solid-phase epitaxy. The Se-hyperdoped Si NWs are successfully recrystallized and accommodate Se concentrations as high as 1021 cm-3. As a proof of device concept, a single Se-hyperdoped NW-based IR photoconductor is shown. In this way, the combination of ion implantation and flash lamp annealing as a promising nanoscale hyperdoping technology is successfully established.
[1] Y. Berencén, S. Prucnal, Fang Liu, I. Skorupa, R. Hübner, L. Rebohle, S. Zhou, H. Schneider, M. Helm, and W. Skorupa, “Room-temperature short-wavelength infrared Si photodetector,” Sci. Rep. 7, 43688 (2017).
[2] B. Tian, T. Cohen-Karni, Q. Qing, X. Duan, P. Xie and C.M. Lieber, “Three-dimensional, flexible nanoscale field-effect transistors as localized bioprobes,” Science 329, 831 (2010).
[3] T. J. Kempa, B. Tian, D.R. Kim, J. Hu, X. Zheng and C.M. Lieber, “Single and tandem axial p-i-n nanowire photovoltaic devices,” Nano Lett. 8, 3456 (2008).