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A potential optical sensor based on nanostructured silicon

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Abstract

Silicon (Si); the most abundant raw material on the earth’s crust upholds a promising future in the silicon or electronic industry. However, the intrinsic indirect bandgap (1.12 eV), limits its usage in optoelectronics devices due to the passage of the infrared spectrum. Herein, we have structurally modified the Si structure into a nanostructured material like porous silicon (PS) for application in optoelectronic devices. In order to make PS structures, n-type monocrystalline Si was anodized in an ethanoic-HF solution. The average diameter of the pores created by anisotropic electrochemical etching with fixed time and current density was determined to be around 250 nm. The PS demonstrated a direct bandgap and an energy gap of 1.73 eV. The obtained PS-based device’s photoresponse was investigated at various laser irradiation wavelengths. The best response sensitivity of 11.18% was noted at a wavelength of 786 nm, thus, promising to be a potential material for visible range photodetectors.

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Acknowledgements

SA and AA are grateful to the Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India, for providing research facilities, infrastructure, and financial support. SA and AA would like to thank the Ministry of Human Resource Development for the financial support. The authors are thankful to Sprint Testing Solution and the Indian Institute of Technology Patna for providing a few characterization techniques facilities. PR would like to thank Science and Engineering Research Board for Start-up Research Grant (Grant nos. SRG/2022/000192, SRG/2022/000825, and SRG/2022/001377) for collaboration and Science for Equity Empowerment and Development Grant No. I/SEED/PRJ/20220044.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, Jodhpur, Rajasthan, 342037, India

      Shahzad Ahmed, Arshiya Ansari, Moin Ali Siddiqui & Pranay Ranjan

    2. State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China

      Afzal Khan

    Author notes

    1. Shahzad Ahmed and Arshiya Ansari have contributed equally to this work.

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      1. Shahzad Ahmed
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      2. Arshiya Ansari
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      Contributions

      SA: Conceptualization, investigation, writing—original draft, and figure drawings, visualization reviewing, and editing. AA: Conceptualization, investigation, writing—original draft, figure drawings, visualization reviewing, and editing. MAS: Writing—original draft, and figure drawings. AK: Supervision, conceptualization, visualization—reviewing, and editing. PR: Supervision, conceptualization, visualization—reviewing, and editing.

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      Correspondence to Shahzad Ahmed, Afzal Khan or Pranay Ranjan.

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      Ahmed, S., Ansari, A., Siddiqui, M.A. et al. A potential optical sensor based on nanostructured silicon. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 34, 755 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-10187-2

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