2016/12/10 by Dirk König, König, Dirk, Daniel Hiller +7
Engineering · Materials Science · #FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Nanowire Synthesis and Applications #Semiconductor materials and devices #Silicon Nanostructures and Photoluminescence
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1612.03256
openalex publication_date 2016/12/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
All electronic, optoelectronic or photovoltaic applications of silicon depend\non controlling majority charge carriers via doping with impurity atoms.\nNanoscale silicon is omnipresent in fundamental research (quantum dots,\nnanowires) but also approached in future technology nodes of the\nmicroelectronics industry. In general, silicon nanovolumes, irrespective of\ntheir intended purpose, suffer from effects that impede conventional doping due\nto fundamental physical principles such as out-diffusion, statistics of small\nnumbers, quantum- or dielectric confinement. In analogy to the concept of\nmodulation doping, originally invented for III-V semiconductors, we demonstrate\na heterostructure modulation doping method for silicon. Our approach utilizes a\nspecific acceptor state of aluminium atoms in silicon dioxide to generate holes\nas majority carriers in adjacent silicon. By relocating the dopants from\nsilicon to silicon dioxide, Si nanoscale doping problems are circumvented. In\naddition, the concept of aluminium-induced acceptor states for passivating hole\nselective tunnelling contacts as required for high-efficiency photovoltaics is\npresented and corroborated by first carrier lifetime measurements.\n