Infrared response of the lateral PIN structure of a highly titanium-doped silicon-on-insulator material

The intermediate band (IB) solar cell is a promising third-generation solar cell that could possibly achieve very high efficiency above the Shockley-Queisser limit. One of the promising ways to synthesize IB material is to introduce heavily doped deep level impurities in conventional semiconductors. High-doped Ti with a concentration of 10²⁰ cm^-3-10²¹ cm^-3 in the p-type top Si layer of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate is obtained by ion implantation and rapid thermal annealing (RTA). Secondary ion mass spectrometry measurements confirm that the Ti concentration exceeds the theoretical Mott limit, the main requirement for the formation of an impurity intermediate band. Increased absorption is observed in the infrared (IR) region by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) technology. By using a lateral p-i-n structure, an obvious infrared response in a range of 1100 nm-2000 nm is achieved in a heavily Ti-doped SOI substrate, suggesting that the improvement on IR photoresponse is a result of increased absorption in the IR. The experimental results indicate that heavily Ti-implanted Si can be used as a potential kind of intermediate-band photovoltaic material to utilize the infrared photons of the solar spectrum.