Alphavoltaic Performance of 4H-SiC Schottky Barrier Diodes

Abstract

The alpha voltaic effect in 4H-SiC Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) with nickel (Ni) and titanium (Ti) as Schottky contacts is demonstrated using 5.5-MeV energetic ${}^{241} {\text {Am}}$ alpha source of 1.414- $\mu $ Ci/cm2 activity. The as-developed SBDs for high-resolution alpha spectroscopy are used here with no further optimization for alpha voltaic response. The fabricated Ni/4H-SiC Schottky diodes exhibited an open-circuit voltage $(V_{\text {OC}}) $ of 0.4 V, a short-circuit current density $(J_{\text {SC}})$ of nearly ${175~\text {pA}} / {\text {cm}}^{2}$ , and an energy conversion efficiency of 0.28% upon continuous alpha exposure, whereas relatively inferior performance is observed for Ti/4H-SiC Schottky diodes with $V_{\text {OC}}$ of 0.15 V, $J_{\text {SC}} $ of 2.15 pA/cm2, and a conversion efficiency of 0.0005% though the Ti/4H-SiC SBD upon annealing at $400~^{\circ }$ C in nitrogen ambient exhibited better electrical characteristics compared to the Ni/4H-SiC SBDs. The analysis of the electrical characteristics of both the Schottky diodes reveals the higher surface state densities ( $N_{\text {SS}}$ ) for Ti/4H-SiC SBD compared to Ni/4H-SiC SBD. Significant degradation in the battery performance ( $V_{\text {OC}}$ degraded to 18% and $J_{\text {SC}} $ reduced to 30% of their initial values) is noticed upon long-term alpha exposure of the Ni/SiC SBDs beyond 30 h. Meanwhile, no major changes are observed in Ti/4H-SiC SBD alpha voltaic cell performance with irradiation. Free-carrier-depth profiles extracted from C–V measurements of the irradiated devices reveal a considerable carrier removal possibly due to bulk damage. In addition, a significant increase in the density of surface states $(N_{\text {ss}})$ is noted upon prolonged alpha exposure leading to inferior performance of the SBDs. Hence, further improvements in the alphavoltaic performance of the Ni/SiC SBD may be obtained by passivating the surface.