Regular Article

Fabrication and characterization of In_0.83Al_0.17N based MSM visible photodiode

School of Physics, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), 11800 Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

^a e-mail: naveed.phys@gmail.com

Received: 20 June 2016
Revised: 9 August 2016
Accepted: 1 September 2016
Published online: 10 October 2016

Abstract

In this work, we report on the growth of In_0.83Al_0.17N film on p-type Si (1 1 1) substrate for metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodiode application. The film was synthesized by reactive magnetron co-sputtering technique on Si (1 1 1) substrate in Ar and N₂ mixture at 300 °C. The X-ray diffraction analysis revealed (0 0 2) oriented diffraction peak corresponding to nanocrystalline InAlN. The band gap of In_0.83Al_0.17N film was estimated from UV-vis reflectance measurement and it was found to be 2.38 eV. To fabricate In_0.83Al_0.17N based MSM photodiode, Pt contacts were deposited on the film through RF magnetron sputtering. Upon exposure to 520 nm light, the Pt/In_0.83Al_0.17N/Pt photodiode displayed a sharp rise in the value of current. The photodiode exhibited a high sensitivity (4.8×10³) and current gain (48.1) at a bias voltage of 5 V. The response and recovery time were calculated to be 0.62 and 0.63 s respectively. The results of present work demonstrate that the sputtered grown InAlN film is a promising material for the MSM photodiode application.