Nanosecond laser annealing processed surface-structured hyperdoped silicon for efficient near-infrared detection

Surface-structured engineering of hyperdoped silicon can effectively facilitate the absorption of sub-bandgap photons in pristine single-crystal silicon (sc-Si). Here, we conducted different annealing approaches of ordinary thermal annealing (OTA) and nanosecond laser annealing (NLA) on modification of titanium-hyperdoped silicon (Si:Ti) surface structure, to achieve efficient near-infrared detection. It is presented that both OTA and NLA processes can improve the crystallinity of Si:Ti samples. In detail, atomic-resolved STEM characterization illustrates that NLA treatment will further eliminate the amorphous phase on Si:Ti surface to varying degrees. While one-dimensional periodic stacking fault structure of 9R-Si phase is formed at the surface of sc-Si and embedded in the Si matrix during the OTA process, which reveals the seamless interface of 9R-Si/sc-Si along with [1 1<overline>0] direction. Due to the high sub-bandgap light absorption and good crystal structure, the Si:Ti photodetector after NLA treatment with an energy density of 2.6 J cm-2 exhibited the highest responsivity, reaching 151 mA W-1 at 1550 nm even at a low operating voltage of 1 V. We assume the performance enhancement of NLA processed Si:Ti photodetectors can be attributed to two aspects, the one is NLA can reduce the recombination of photo-generated charge carriers in amorphous surface layer by improving crystallization, and the other is that NLA process can weaken the diffusion of titanium impurities due to the extremely rapid heating and cooling rates. This study presents prospects towards surface-structured silicon in infrared light detection.