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The effects of a thin film dopant precursor on the structure and properties of femtosecond-laser irradiated silicon

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Abstract

Femtosecond (fs) laser irradiation of a silicon substrate coated with a thin film is a flexible approach to producing metastable alloys with unique properties, including near-unity sub-band gap absorptance extending into the infrared. However, dopant incorporation from a thin film during fs-laser irradiation is not well understood. We study the thin film femtosecond-laser doping process through optical and structural characterization of silicon fs-laser doped using a selenium thin film, and compare the resulting microstructure and dopant distribution to fs-laser doping with sulfur from a gaseous precursor. We show that a thin film dopant precursor significantly changes the laser-material interactions, modifying both the surface structuring and dopant incorporation processes and in turn affecting p–n diode behavior.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

    Matthew J. Smith & Silvija Gradečak

  2. Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA

    Mark Winkler, Meng-Ju Sher & Eric Mazur

  3. School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA

    Yu-Ting Lin & Eric Mazur

Authors
  1. Matthew J. Smith
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  2. Mark Winkler
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  3. Meng-Ju Sher
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  4. Yu-Ting Lin
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  5. Eric Mazur
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  6. Silvija Gradečak
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Correspondence to Silvija Gradečak.

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Smith, M.J., Winkler, M., Sher, MJ. et al. The effects of a thin film dopant precursor on the structure and properties of femtosecond-laser irradiated silicon. Appl. Phys. A 105, 795–800 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-011-6651-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-011-6651-2

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