Photocurrent and Spectral Response Analysis of a-SiC:H Pinip and Pinpin Photodiodes

We present in this paper results about the analysis of photocurrent and spectral response in a-SiC:H/a-Si:H pinpin and pinip structures. Our experiments and analysis reveal the photocurrent profile to have a strong nonlinear dependence on the externally applied bias and on the light absorption profile, i.e., on the incident light wavelength and intensity. Our interpretation points out the cause of such effect to a self biasing of the junctions under certain unbalanced light generation of carriers and to an asymmetric reaction of the internal electric fields to the externally imposed bias. The possibility to relate such a behavior to the light intensity and wavelength indicates realistic hypothesis of using these structures and this effect for color recognition sensors. We present results about the experimental characterization of the structures and numerical simulations obtained with the program ASCA. Considerations about electrical field profiles and inversion layers will be taken into account to explain the optical and voltage bias dependence of the spectral response. Our results show that in both structures the application of an external electrical bias (forward or reverse) mainly influences the field distribution within the less photo excited sub-cell.