Amorphous Silicon/Silicon carbide photodiodes with excellent sensitivity and selectivity in the vacuum ultraviolet spectrum

An innovative family of thin-film photodetectors optimized for the ultraviolet (UV) spectrum is presented here. The devices are made of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) and silicon carbide (a-SiC:H) on glass substrates. At room temperature, the photodetectors exhibit values of quantum efficiency of 21% in the vacuum UV and 0.08% at 750 nm, without external voltage. The great advantage of this technology lies in the possibility to produce low-cost, large-area arrays of photodetectors on glass or flexible substrates. All these features candidate the a-Si/SiC:H photodetectors as possible, concurrent to specialized commercial devices.© 1995 American Institute of Physics.