Hole-blocking titanium-oxide/silicon heterojunction and its application to photovoltaics

Sushobhan Avasthi, William E. McClain, Gabriel Man, Antoine Kahn, Jeffrey Schwartz, James C. Sturm

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

192 Scopus citations

Abstract

In contrast to the numerous reports on narrow-bandgap heterojunctions on silicon, such as strained Si1-xGex on silicon, there have been very few accounts of wide-bandgap semiconducting heterojunctions on silicon. Here, we present a wide-bandgap heterojunction - between titanium oxide and crystalline silicon - where the titanium oxide is deposited via a metal-organic chemical vapor deposition process at substrate temperatures of only 80-100 °C. The deposited films are conformal and smooth at the nanometer scale. Electrically, the TiO2/Si heterojunction prevents transport of holes while allowing transport of electrons. This selective carrier blocking is used to demonstrate a low-temperature processed silicon solar cell.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number203901
JournalApplied Physics Letters
Volume102
Issue number20
DOIs
StatePublished - May 20 2013

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)

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