Band gap determination of semiconductor powders via surface photovoltage spectroscopy

Abstract

Surface photovoltage spectroscopy (SPS) is introduced as a powerful tool for band gap determination of semiconductor powders. The main advantage of SPS is that scattering and reflection do not interfere with the spectra. Therefore, it does not suffer from the inherent limitations of transmission/reflection based spectroscopies, most notably diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS). The principles of the approach are presented and its usefulness is demonstrated by comparing it with DRS for band gap determination of GaAs, InP, CdTe, CdSe, and CdS semiconductor powders.