Single-Crystalline Silicon-Based Heterojunction Photodiode Arrays on Flexible Plastic Substrates

A silicon-based photodiode array was fabricated on a flexible polyethylene terephthalate substrate using a transfer printing technique. A heterojunction structure composed of a 15-nm-thick highly doped hydrogenated amorphous-silicon (n(+) a-Si: H) layer and a 3-mu m-thick p-type single-crystal silicon (p c-Si) membrane layer was adopted as the active layer of the flexible photodiode. The highly ordered photodiode array formed on the flexible substrate exhibited superior stability in electrical properties under bent conditions with no mechanical deformation. The variation of the spectral quantum efficiency (QE) under short-wavelength light illumination (lambda <= 580 nm) was in excellent agreement with that of a heterojunction photodiode composed of a-Si: H and a bulk c-Si substrate. Relatively low QE values were observed under longer wavelength (lambda >= 600 nm) illumination due to the finite thickness of the active layer. The C-V measurement results of the fabricated photodiode array were in accordance with the abrupt junction model. A closer inspection of the junction area of the device using high-resolution cross-sectional transmission micrograph exhibited an interface depth of 2 +/- 0.5 nm, which is unavoidable in plasma-enhanced a-Si:H deposition processes.