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Long-time Stability of the Enhanced Porous Silicon Opto-electrical Properties by Samarium Pore-filling

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Abstract

The long-time stability of the enhanced porous silicon (PS) optoelectronic properties using samarium (Sm) pore-filling were investigated based on experimental results. Non treated natural and thermally oxidized PS samples were taken as reference. The morphology evolution of the samples was observed by using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Fourier-Transform Infrared spectra (FTIR) of Sm treated PS (Sm-PS) show the appearance of new band localized at 470 cm−1 and attributed to Sm–O-Si which is persistent after 7 months of air exposure. Photoluminescence (PL) characterization demonstrated a stable threefold increase in the PL intensity of the Sm-PS. However, a blue shift from 1.829 eV to 1.835 eV and 1.890 eV for both natural aged and the thermal annealed PS samples accompanied with a dwindling in the intensity are observed and attributed to the decrease in the silicon crystallite size. The deconvolution of Raman spectrum of Sm-PS sample shows the existence of three bonds localized at 520, 518 and 506 cm−1 and attributed to the crystalline Si substrate, the formation of silicon nanocrystallites (SiNCs) and the compressive strained PS layer after the deposition of Sm layer, respectively. The electrical properties were analyzed based on the effective minority carrier lifetime (τeff) and surface recombination velocity (Seff). The Sm treated samples show the highest τeff about 52 µs and as a result the lowest Seff comparing to the freshly prepared PS which exhibits a τeff of about 13.2 µs due to the passivating capability of Sm layer. These results highlight the effectiveness of coating PS with Sm layer suitable for light emission and photovoltaic applications.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated and analyses during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to extend their heartily thanks to the editor and reviewers who have gone through thoroughly this manuscript and pointed out valuable comments for the sake of improvement of the article.

Funding

This work is funded by the Ministry of High Education and Scientific Research of Tunisia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire de Photovoltaïque, Centre de Recherches Et Des Technologies de L’Energie, BP 95, Hammam-Lif, 2050, Tunisie

    Ahmed Zarroug, Chohdi Amri, Zouheir Bouznif & Hatem Ezzaouia

  2. Department of Physics, College of Science, United Arab Emirates University, 15551, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates

    Chohdi Amri

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  1. Ahmed Zarroug
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  3. Zouheir Bouznif
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Contributions

AZ carried out all the experiments of elaboration and characterizations and participated in the interpretation of the results. CA and ZB co-supervised the work, participated in the concept of the study, and wrote the manuscript. HE supervised the work and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ahmed Zarroug.

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Zarroug, A., Amri, C., Bouznif, Z. et al. Long-time Stability of the Enhanced Porous Silicon Opto-electrical Properties by Samarium Pore-filling. Silicon (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-024-02922-z

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