Investigation of Carrier Transient Response of Nanopatterned n-ZnO/a-Si(i)/p(+)-Si Photodiodes

Abstract

We investigated the carrier transient response of the nanopatterned silicon heterojunction photodiodes using ZnO as the n-type semiconductor. The results show that under the constant light illumination intensity, the planar structure has faster carrier response than the nanopatterned amorphous silicon (intrinsic) (a-Si(i)) diodes. It is attributed to a higher number of generated carriers in the nanostructure (due to the lower surface reflectivity) that increases the probability of collisions. On the other hand, the shortest response time of the device with nanopatterned p(+)-Si suggests that carriers can be effectively transported vertically and horizontally through the p-i(intrinsic)-n structure. Furthermore, the wavelength-dependent rise time is correlated to the different transport distance between electrons and holes at different excited wavelengths.