Metal oxide protection layers for photoanodes may enable the development of large-scale solar fuel and solar chemical synthesis, but the poor photovoltages often reported so far will severely limit their performance. Here we report a novel observation of photovoltage loss associated with a charge extraction barrier imposed by the protection layer, and, by eliminating it, achieve photovoltages as high as 630 mV, the maximum reported so far for water-splitting silicon photoanodes. The loss mechanism is systematically probed in metal-insulator-semiconductor Schottky junction cells compared to buried junction p(+)n cells, revealing the need to maintain a characteristic hole density at the semiconductor/insulator interface. A leaky-capacitor model related to the dielectric properties of the protective oxide explains this loss, achieving excellent agreement with the data. From these findings, we formulate design principles for simultaneous optimization of built-in field, interface quality, and hole extraction to maximize the photovoltage of oxide-protected water-splitting anodes.

Platinum diselenide (PtSe) is a group-10 transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) that has unique electronic properties, in particular a semimetal-to-semiconductor transition when going from bulk to monolayer form. We report on vertical hybrid Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) of two-dimensional (2D) PtSe thin films on crystalline n-type silicon. The diodes have been fabricated by transferring large-scale layered PtSe films, synthesized by thermally assisted conversion of predeposited Pt films at back-end-of-the-line CMOS compatible temperatures, onto SiO/Si substrates. The diodes exhibit obvious rectifying behavior with a photoresponse under illumination. Spectral response analysis reveals a maximum responsivity of 490 mA/W at photon energies above the Si bandgap and relatively weak responsivity, in the range of 0.1-1.5 mA/W, at photon energies below the Si bandgap. In particular, the photoresponsivity of PtSe in infrared allows PtSe to be utilized as an absorber of infrared light with tunable sensitivity. The results of our study indicate that PtSe is a promising option for the development of infrared absorbers and detectors for optoelectronics applications with low-temperature processing conditions.

We report experimental and theoretical studies of defects producing fixed charge within Al(2)O(3) layers grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) on In(0.53)Ga(0.47)As(001) substrates and the effects of hydrogen passivation of these defects. Capacitance-voltage measurements of Pt/ALD-Al(2)O(3)/n-In(0.53)Ga(0.47)As suggested the presence of positive bulk fixed charge and negative interfacial fixed charge within ALD-Al(2)O(3). We identified oxygen and aluminum dangling bonds (DBs) as the origin of the fixed charge. First-principles calculations predicted possible passivation of both O and Al DBs, which would neutralize fixed charge, and this prediction was confirmed experimentally; postmetallization forming gas anneal removed most of the fixed charge in ALD-Al(2)O(3). (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. (doi:10.1063/1.3399776

In this work, we present a comprehensive theoretical and experimental study of quantum confinement in layered platinum diselenide (PtSe 2 ) films as a function of film thickness. Our electrical measurements, in combination with density functional theory calculations, show distinct layer-dependent semimetal-to-semiconductor evolution in PtSe 2 films, and highlight the importance of including van der Waals interactions, Green's function calibration, and screened Coulomb interactions in the determination of the thickness-dependent PtSe 2 energy gap. Large-area PtSe 2 films of varying thickness (2.5-6.5 nm) were formed at 400°C by thermally assisted conversion of ultra-thin platinum films on Si/SiO 2 substrates. The PtSe 2 films exhibit p-type semiconducting behavior with hole mobility values up to 13 cm 2 /V·s. Metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors have been fabricated using the grown PtSe 2 films and a gate field-controlled switching performance with an I ON /I OFF ratio of >230 has been measured at room temperature for a 2.5-3 nm PtSe 2 film, while the ratio drops to <2 for 5-6.5 nm-thick PtSe 2 films, consistent with a semiconductingto-semimetallic transition with increasing PtSe 2 film thickness. These experimental observations indicate that the low-temperature growth of semimetallic or semiconducting PtSe 2 could be integrated into the back-end-of-line of a silicon complementary metaloxide-semiconductor process.npj 2D Materials and Applications (2019) 3:33 ; https://doi.

Brammertz, G.; Heyns, M.; Newcomb, Simon B.; Afanas'ev, V. V.;Hurley, Paul K.

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In this work, we present the results of an investigation into the effectiveness of varying ammonium sulphide (NH4)2S concentrations in the passivation of n-type and p-type In0.53Ga0.47As. Samples were degreased and immersed in aqueous (NH4)2S solutions of concentrations 22%, 10%, 5%, or 1% for 20 min at 295 K, immediately prior to atomic layer deposition of Al2O3. Multi-frequency capacitance-voltage (C-V) results on capacitor structures indicate that the lowest frequency dispersion over the bias range examined occurs for n-type and p-type devices treated with the 10%(NH4)2S solution. The deleterious effect on device behavior of increased ambient exposure time after removal from 10%(NH4)2S solution is also presented. Estimations of the interface state defect density (Dit) for the optimum 10%(NH4)2S passivated In0.53Ga0.47As devices extracted using an approximation to the conductance method, and also extracted using the temperature-modified high-low frequency C-V method, indicate that the same defect is present over n-type and p-type devices having an integrated Dit of ∼2.5×1012 cm−2 (±1×1012 cm−2) with the peak density positioned in the middle of the In0.53Ga0.47As band gap at approximately 0.37 eV (±0.03 eV) from the valence band edge. Both methods used for extracting Dit show very good agreement, providing evidence to support that the conductance method can be applied to devices incorporating high-k oxides on In0.53Ga0.47As.

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