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. 2022 Oct 4;12(19):3466.
doi: 10.3390/nano12193466.

High-Resolution Photoemission Study of Neutron-Induced Defects in Amorphous Hydrogenated Silicon Devices

Francesca Peverini  1   2 , Marco Bizzarri  1   2 , Maurizio Boscardin  3   4 , Lucio Calcagnile  5 , Mirco Caprai  1 , Anna Paola Caricato  6 , Giuseppe Antonio Pablo Cirrone  7 , Michele Crivellari  4 , Giacomo Cuttone  7 , Sylvain Dunand  8 , Livio Fanò  1   2 , Benedetta Gianfelici  1   2 , Omar Hammad  4 , Maria Ionica  1 , Keida Kanxheri  1 , Matthew Large  9 , Giuseppe Maruccio  6 , Mauro Menichelli  1 , Anna Grazia Monteduro  6 , Francesco Moscatelli  1   10 , Arianna Morozzi  1 , Stefania Pallotta  11 , Andrea Papi  1 , Daniele Passeri  1   12 , Marco Petasecca  9 , Giada Petringa  7 , Igor Pis  13 , Gianluca Quarta  5 , Silvia Rizzato  6 , Alessandro Rossi  1   2 , Giulia Rossi  1 , Andrea Scorzoni  1   12 , Cristian Soncini  10 , Leonello Servoli  1 , Silvia Tacchi  10 , Cinzia Talamonti  11 , Giovanni Verzellesi  3   14 , Nicolas Wyrsch  8 , Nicola Zema  15 , Maddalena Pedio  1   16
Affiliations

High-Resolution Photoemission Study of Neutron-Induced Defects in Amorphous Hydrogenated Silicon Devices

Francesca Peverini et al. Nanomaterials (Basel). .

Abstract

In this paper, by means of high-resolution photoemission, soft X-ray absorption and atomic force microscopy, we investigate, for the first time, the mechanisms of damaging, induced by neutron source, and recovering (after annealing) of p-i-n detector devices based on hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H). This investigation will be performed by mean of high-resolution photoemission, soft X-Ray absorption and atomic force microscopy. Due to dangling bonds, the amorphous silicon is a highly defective material. However, by hydrogenation it is possible to reduce the density of the defect by several orders of magnitude, using hydrogenation and this will allow its usage in radiation detector devices. The investigation of the damage induced by exposure to high energy irradiation and its microscopic origin is fundamental since the amount of defects determine the electronic properties of the a-Si:H. The comparison of the spectroscopic results on bare and irradiated samples shows an increased degree of disorder and a strong reduction of the Si-H bonds after irradiation. After annealing we observe a partial recovering of the Si-H bonds, reducing the disorder in the Si (possibly due to the lowering of the radiation-induced dangling bonds). Moreover, effects in the uppermost coating are also observed by spectroscopies.

Keywords: X-ray absorption; amorphous hydrogenated silicon; photoemission.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Top and side view of the p-i-n diode.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Si L2,3 XAS spectra for a-Si:H Ref and device samples measured in FY (black lines). Crystalline Si and amorphous Si spectra are shown for comparison (grey lines).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Si2p core level for the reference a-Si:H (a-Si:H Ref) sample measured at 1400 eV photon energy and the deconvolution into chemically shifted components (see also Table 1).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Si2p core level deconvolution for a-Si:H device samples measured in different samples: top left non-irradiated hv = 1400 eV, right non-irradiated hv = 700 eV; bottom left irradiated, bottom right: irradiated and annealed.
Figure 5
Figure 5
AFM topography image and height profile of the a-SiH NonIrr (a,b), a-SiH Irr (c,d), and the a-SiH Ann (e,f).
Figure 6
Figure 6
Left: O1s photoemission core level taken at 1400 eV for the three samples. The Non-irradiated sample is a single peak at 533.4 eV, as expected in SiO2 coating. Left: O K edge XAS spectra for the three samples.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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