Photo-induced current through nanocomposite heterojunction structures consisting of a TiO 2 coating activated with embedded gold nanoparticles on top of Si, SiO 2 , and columnar structured SiO 2 is studied. The highest photo-activity in the visible part of the spectrum is found in the composite containing pillar-like silicon dioxide nanostructures. Experimental results were qualitatively explained on the basis of Franz-Keldysh effect taking into account the effects of electrical inhomogeneities appearing at charged nanoparticles. It is established that processes at the interface between silicon and noble metal nanoparticles play an important role in charge carrier photo-generation which opens a new opportunity to tune the photo-response of a nanocomposite via changing heterostructure topology.
In this work, we study photo-induced current transfer through nanocomposite structures consisting of the TiO2 coating activated with plasmonic gold nanoparticles on top of pillar-like structured SiO2. It is shown that the photo-response of the nanocomposite can be adjusted via tuning of the heterostructure topology. Processes at the interface between silicon and noble metal nanoparticle play an important role in charge carrier photo-generation. The high photo-activity in visible part of spectrum has been found in the composite, containing pillar-like silicon dioxide nanostructures [1]. The electron transport via the SiO2 layer from the potential well at the TiO2-SiO2 interface to the n-Si conduction band was explained by electron tunneling mechanism. We present the empirical qualitative model which explains experimental results and helps to separate the contributions of different transport mechanisms.
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