Carrier transport at grain boundaries in semiconductors

Mataré, Herbert F.

doi:10.1063/1.333793

Cited by 131 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 99 publications

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“…In general, two main mechanisms can be used to explain the conduction behavior of semiconductive CNTs: variable range hopping (VRH) [28] and tunneling conduction (TC). [29] They can be described with the following two equations, respectively:…”

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Structure‐Dependent Electrical Properties of Carbon Nanotube Fibers

et al. 2007

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Improved electron transport along a carbon nanotube (CNT) fiber when it is spun from an array of longer nanotubes is reported. The effect of chemical post‐treatments is also demonstrated. For example, the covalent bonding of gold nanoparticles to the CNT fibers remarkably improves conductivity (see figure), whereas annealing CNT fibers in a hydrogen‐containing atmosphere leads to a dramatic decrease in conductivity.

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Structure‐Dependent Electrical Properties of Carbon Nanotube Fibers

et al. 2007

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“…It is not necessary to stress that the key to improve the efficiency of mc-Si solar cell is the control of grain boundaries (GBs) and impurity contaminations. It is widely accepted that the GBs and sub-boundaries give serious suppression of solar cell efficiency [1][2][3][4].The impurity contamination, mainly Fe, also degrades the efficiency very much [5][6][7][8][9]. In commercial mc-Si wafers, these two defects closely interact with each other and determine the solar cell efficiency.…”

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Electron‐beam‐induced current study of grain boundaries in multicrystalline Si

Chen

Sekiguchi²,

Yang

2007

Phys. Status Solidi (c)

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PACS 61.72 Mm, 71.55 Cn, 73.20 Hb Systematical studies on the intrinsic and extrinsic recombination activities of grain boundaries (GBs) in multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) were reported by using temperature-dependent electron-beam-induced current (EBIC). EBIC results revealed that in the clean mc-Si, all the GBs exhibited weak EBIC contrasts at 300 K, suggesting their recombination strengths were weak and the energy levels were associated with shallow levels. The effect of impurity contamination was also evaluated by employing different contamination levels of Fe. The EBIC contrasts of GBs were enhanced after Fe contamination and showed a strong dependence on both the GB character and contamination level. The impurity gettering abilities of GBs were as following, SA > R > high-Σ > low-Σ. SA GBs were found with the strongest impurity gettering ability and tended to be the most detrimental GBs. Finally, the effect of H-passivation on different GBs with or without contamination was evaluated.

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“…Also the local resistivity around a GB can be substantially different from that of the bulk. Relatively little work has been done on the electronic properties of GBs in metals as against semiconductors [15][16][17]. In semiconductors it is known that in the case of a tilt boundary or any other distribution of dislocations with a preferred orientation, the conductivity along the dislocation lines is easier than perpendicular to them.…”

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A study of the spatial variation of electric field in highly resistive metal films by scanning tunneling potentiometry

Ramaswamy¹,

Raychaudhuri²,

Gupta³

et al. 1998

Applied Physics A: Materials Science & Processing

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Electronic transport in highly resistive (but metallic) thin platinum films (≈ 10 nm) deposited by electronbeam evaporation has been studied by scanning tunneling microscopy and scanning tunneling potentiometry (STP). The films have an average grain size of ≈ 10 nm. On this scale transport through the film is very inhomogeneous. Scattering from grain boundaries (GBs) results in large variations in the local potential resulting in fields as high as 10 4 -10 5 V/cm located near the GB. The reflection coefficient R g of electrons at a GB has values between 0.5-0.7 as determined from the STP data. This can be compared to an average R g ≈ 0.9 obtained from an analysis of the bulk resistivity data taken over the temperature range 4.2 K < T < 300 K.Charge transport in thin metal films is not uniform on the nanometer scale and is accompanied by strong inhomogeneities in the field and current density near localized scatterers such as grain boundaries (GBs) and defects. Conventional theories of transport ignore these spatial variations and consider the averaged field. In this average picture all details of the charge transport in the conductor are parameterized by a single parameter, namely the mean free path of the charge carrier. This describes the correct picture in a bulk system but as the sample dimension decreases it becomes necessary to measure the relevant quantities on a nanometer scale and the deviations of the local fields and potentials from the average values become significant. The significance of the influence of localized scatterers was first recognized and investigated theoretically by Landauer [1]. He pointed out that the microscopic dipole field that results from the asymmetry of the electron scattering at a point defect is the ultimate source of the residual resistivity. Work of Landauer and subsequent developments [2,3] showed the equivalence of the residual resistivity dipole approach and the more conventional Boltzmann transport approach. Understanding the exact microscopic nature of the scattering process is important in order to gain insight into fundamental questions like charge transport at the nanometer scale and is also of practical interest in phenomena like electromigration. While bulk transport properties which give a measure of the average behavior have been investigated for a long time, the actual electronic processes taking place at a nanometer level (at the scale of electronic mean free path) remained essentially unanswered mainly because of the lack of an experimental tool to study the properties on this scale. Development of scanning probe microscopies (SPMs) [4,5] and in particular scanning tunneling potentiometry (STP) [6-8] has enabled us to experimentally observe the scattering-induced field variations at a nanometer scale. More recent theoretical studies have established the condition under which scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) can measure the change in local electrochemical potential [9]. It is only recently with the advent of STP that this issue is being reinvestigated and a...

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Carrier transport at grain boundaries in semiconductors

Cited by 131 publications

References 99 publications

Structure‐Dependent Electrical Properties of Carbon Nanotube Fibers

Structure‐Dependent Electrical Properties of Carbon Nanotube Fibers

Electron‐beam‐induced current study of grain boundaries in multicrystalline Si

A study of the spatial variation of electric field in highly resistive metal films by scanning tunneling potentiometry

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