Congratulations to Aftab for his new paper, “SiSn Diodes:
Theoretical Analysis and Experimental Verification” to be published in Appl. Phys.
Lett!
Authored by: Aftab M. Hussain, Nimer Wehbe, Muhammad M.
Hussain [Nimer Wehbe is from Imaging and Characterization Lab Core Facility in
KAUST]
We report a theoretical analysis and experimental
verification of change in band gap of silicon lattice due to the incorporation
of tin (Sn). We formed SiSn ultra-thin film on the top surface of a 4” silicon
wafer using thermal diffusion of Sn We report a reduction of 0.1 V in the
average built-in potential, and a reduction of 0.2 V in the average reverse
bias breakdown voltage, as measured across the substrate. These reductions
indicate that the band gap of the silicon lattice has been reduced due to the
incorporation of Sn, as expected from the theoretical analysis. We report the
experimentally calculated band gap of SiSn to be 1.11±0.09 eV. This low-cost,
CMOS compatible and scalable process offers a unique opportunity to tune the
band gap of silicon for specific applications.
It was an interesting one – with some back and forth
rebuttals, a hard fought win, as always :-)
…