B. R. Appleton

High Efficiency Graphene Solar Cells by Chemical Doping

We demonstrate single layer graphene/n-Si Schottky junction solar cells that under AM1.5 illumination exhibit a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 8.6%. This performance, achieved by doping the graphene with bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)amide, exceeds the native (undoped) device performance by a factor of 4.5 and is the highest PCE reported for graphene-based solar cells to date. Current-voltage, capacitance-voltage, and external quantum efficiency measurements show the enhancement to be due to the doping-induced shift in the graphene chemical potential that increases the graphene carrier density (decreasing the cell series resistance) and increases the cells built-in potential (increasing the open circuit voltage) both of which improve the solar cell fill factor.

Supersaturated substitutional alloys formed by ion implantation and pulsed laser annealing of group‐III and group‐V dopants in silicon

The formation of supersaturated substitutional alloys by ion implantation and rapid liquid‐phase‐epitaxial regrowth induced by pulsed laser annealing has been studied using Rutherford backscattering, ion channeling analysis. Group‐III (Ga, In) and group‐V (As, Sb, Bi) dopants have been implanted into single‐crystal silicon at doses ranging from 1×1015 to 1×1017/cm2. The samples were annealed with a Q‐switched ruby laser (energy density ∼1.5 J/cm2, pulse duration ∼15×10−9 sec). Ion channeling analysis shows that laser annealing incorporates these dopants into substitutional lattice sites at concentrations far in excess of the equilibrium solid solubility. Channeling measurements indicate the silicon crystal is essentially defect free after laser annealing. Also values for the maximum dopant concentration (Cmaxs) that can be incorporated into substitutional lattice sites are determined for our annealing conditions. Dopant profiles determined by Rutherford backscattering are compared to model calculations wh...

Profiling Hydrogen in Materials Using Ion Beams

Abstract Over the last few years many ion beam techniques have been reported for the profiling of hydrogen in materials. We have evaluated nine of these using similar samples of hydrogen ion-implanted into silicon. When possible the samples were analysed using two or more techniques to confirm the ion-implanted accuracy. We report the results of this work which has produced a consensus profile of H in silicon which is useful as a calibration standard. The analytical techniques used have capabilities ranging from very high depth resolution ( ≈50 A ) and high sensitivity (

Rectification at graphene-semiconductor interfaces: Zero-gap semiconductor-based diodes

Diodes based on metal-semiconductor interfaces are common place in semiconductor electronics. What happens when the normal metal is replaced by monolayer graphene? A group of physicists at University of Florida experimentally demonstrate that graphene-semiconductor interfaces make interesting diodes for a surprisingly wide variety of semiconductors.

Magnetic properties of MoS2: Existence of ferromagnetism

We report on the magnetic properties of MoS2 measured from room temperature down to 10 K and magnetic fields up to 5 T. We find that single crystals of MoS2 display ferromagnetism superimposed onto large temperature-dependent diamagnetism and have observed that ferromagnetism persists from 10 K up to room temperature. We attribute the existence of ferromagnetism partly to the presence of zigzag edges in the magnetic ground state at the grain boundaries. Since the magnetic measurements are relatively insensitive to the interlayer coupling, these results are expected to be valid in the single layer limit.

Stable hole doping of graphene for low electrical resistance and high optical transparency

We report on the p doping of graphene with the polymer TFSA ((CF(3)SO(2))(2)NH). Modification of graphene with TFSA decreases the graphene sheet resistance by 70%. Through such modification, we report sheet resistance values as low as 129 Ω, thus attaining values comparable to those of indium-tin oxide (ITO), while displaying superior environmental stability and preserving electrical properties over extended time scales. Electrical transport measurements reveal that, after doping, the carrier density of holes increases, consistent with the acceptor nature of TFSA, and the mobility decreases due to enhanced short-range scattering. The Drude formula predicts that competition between these two effects yields an overall increase in conductivity. We confirm changes in the carrier density and Fermi level of graphene through changes in the Raman G and 2D peak positions. Doped graphene samples display high transmittance in the visible and near-infrared spectrum, preserving graphenes optical properties without any significant reduction in transparency, and are therefore superior to ITO films in the near infrared. The presented results allow integration of doped graphene sheets into optoelectronics, solar cells, and thermoelectric solar cells as well as engineering of the electrical characteristics of various devices by tuning the Fermi level of graphene.

Ion implantation and thermal annealing of α‐Al2O3 single crystals

The effects of ion implantation and post‐implantation thermal annealing of α‐Al2O3 have been characterized using ion scattering‐channeling techniques, and correlated with electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and microhardness measurements. Although most of the work was done on 52Cr implanted specimens, preliminary results have been obtained also for implanted 90Zr and 48Ti. For Cr implantation, the Al2O3 lattice damage saturates at relatively low doses, but the near‐surface region never becomes amorphous. A preferential annealing behavior begins in the Al sublattice after ∼800 °C annealing, and in the oxygen sublattice, only after 1000 °C annealing. Lattice location measurements show that after annealing to 1500 °C, Cr is greater than 95% substitutional in the Al sublattice. Above 1500 °C, implanted Cr atoms redistribute by substitutional diffusion processes. EPR measurements show that part, if not all, of the implanted Cr is trivalent and substitutional after annealing to 1600 °C. Microhardness measurem...

Ion implantation damage and annealing in germanium

We have observed a unique damage structure, which forms within the amorphous phase, in ion‐implanted Ge above a certain ion dose. This structure, which represents a drastic alteration of the near‐surface morphology, is responsible for the adsorption of large quantities of C and O onto the surface of the implanted area. Results are presented of a systematic study of this effect and possible mechanisms for its information are discussed. Ion implantation conditions desirable for device applications are established and deleterious effects due to the presence of this damage upon both solid‐ and liquid‐phase epitaxial growth of the implanted layers are discussed.

Solid-phase-epitaxial growth and formation of metastable alloys in ion implanted silicon

Transmission electron microscopy (cross‐section and plan‐view) and ion backscattering techniques have been combined to study the details of solid‐phase‐epitaxial (SPE) growth in Sb+, In+, Bi+, Ga+, and As+ implanted silicon after furnace annealing in the temperature range 450 to 650 °C. The ion implanted amorphous layer grew ‘‘defect‐free’’ in 〈001〉 orientations and the crystalline–amorphous (c–a) interface during growth contained undulations ∼5 A over the intervals of 200–500 A. During SPE growth in 〈111〉 orientations, the c–a interface was atomically smooth initially, but eventually became nonplanar due to the formation of twins. From SPE growth rates at different temperatures, the activation energy associated with the growth was determined to be 2.6±0.3 eV. The dopant concentrations in defect‐free SPE grown layers were found to exceed equilibrium solid solubility limits by as much as a factor of 560 in the Si–Bi system. The absolute maximum concentrations, corresponding to the intersections of free‐ene...

The amorphization of ceramics by ion beams

The influence of the implantation parameters fluence, substrate temperature, and chemical species on the formation of amorphous phases in Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ and ..cap alpha..-SiC was studied. At 300/sup 0/K, fluences in excess of 10/sup 17/ ions.cm/sup -2/ were generally required to amorphize Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/; however, implantation of zirconium formed the amorphous phase at a fluence of 4 x 10/sup 16/ Zr.cm/sup -2/. At 77/sup 0/K, the threshold fluence was lowered to about 2 x 10/sup 15/ Cr.cm/sup -2/. Single crystals of ..cap alpha..-SiC were amorphized at 300/sup 0/K by a fluence of 2 x 10/sup 14/ Cr.cm/sup -2/ or 1 x 10/sup 15/ N.cm/sup -2/. Implantation at 1023/sup 0/K did not produce the amorphous phase in SiC. The micro-indentation hardness of the amorphous material was about 60% of that of the crystalline counterpart.