Photosensitive hetero-pairing of p-GaAs/n-Si by pulsed-laser deposition

Abstract

Depositing p-GaAs onto n-Si with nanosecond laser pulses at 355, 532 and 1064 nm produced rectifying and photosensitive diodes. The GaAs film formation was straightforwardly carried out without heating the Si substrate. The paper contains a detailed analysis of the bias dependence of the photocurrent (PC) of the junctions. The formed devices allow switching of the PC maxima between the absorption regions of Si and GaAs by applying forward and backward bias, respectively. The work presents pulsed-laser deposition as an undemanding method with quality device achievements even under less favourable conditions as the hetero-pairing of non-matched materials such as GaAs and Si.