The United States of America As Represented by the United States

The United States of America As Represented by the Department of Health

The United States of America As Represented by the Department of Energy

Sandia National Laboratories

David R Myers

Steven Roy Julien Brueck

Gregory A Vawter

Carol I Ashby

Thomas M Brennan

Burrell E Hammons

Ashwani K Sharma

Frederick L Vook

Silicon MSM photodiodes sensitive to radiation in the visible to near infrared spectral range are produced by altering the absorption characteristics of crystalline Si by ion implantation. The implantation produces a defected region below the surface of the silicon with the highest concentration of defects at its base which acts to reduce the contribution of charge carriers formed below the defected layer. The charge carriers generated by the radiation in the upper regions of the defected layer are very quickly collected between biased Schottky barrier electrodes which form a metal-semiconductor-metal structure for the photodiode.

Silicon metal-semiconductor-metal photodetector

Planar-buried-heterostructure, graded-index, separate-confinement-heterostructure semiconductor diode laser 10 includes a single quantum well or multi-quantum well active stripe 12 disposed between a p-type compositionally graded Group III-V cladding lever 14 and an n-type compositionally graded Group III-V cladding layer 16. The laser 10 includes an iion implanted n-type region 28 within the p-type cladding layer 14 and further includes an ion implanted p-type region 26 within the n-type cladding layer 16. The ion implanted regions are disposed for defining a lateral extent of the active stripe.

Method of making an ion-implanted planar-buried-heterostructure diode

The minority carrier lifetime is significantly much shorter in semiconductor materials with very high impurity concentrations than it is in semiconductor materials with lower impurity concentration levels. This phenomenon of reduced minority carrier lifetime in semiconductor materials having high impurity concentration is utilized to advantage for permitting highly selective semiconductor material etching to be achieved using a carrier-driven photochemical etching reaction. Various means may be employed for increasing the local impurity concentration level in specific near-surface regions of a semiconductor prior to subjecting the semiconductor material to a carrier-driven photochemical etching reaction. The regions having the localized increased impurity concentration form a self-aligned mask inhibiting photochemical etching at such localized regions while the adjacent regions not having increased impurity concentrations are selectively photochemically etched. Liquid- or gas-phase etching may be performed.

Carrier-lifetime-controlled selective etching process for semiconductors

A Planar-Buried-Heterostructure, Graded-Index, Separate-Confinement-Heterostructure semiconductor diode laser 10 includes a single quantum well or multi-quantum well active stripe 12 disposed between a p-type compositionally graded Group III-V cladding layer 14 and an n-type compositionally graded Group III-V cladding layer 16. The laser 10 includes an ion implanted n-type region 28 within the p-type cladding layer 14 and further includes an ion implanted p-type region 26 within the n-type cladding layer 16. The ion implanted regions are disposed for defining a lateral extent of the active stripe.

Ion-implanted planar-buried-heterostructure diode laser

An electronic-carrier-controlled photochemical etching process for carrying out patterning and selective removing of material in semiconductor device fabrication includes the steps of selective ion implanting, photochemical dry etching, and thermal annealing, in that order. In the selective ion implanting step, regions of the semiconductor material in a desired pattern are damaged and the remainder of the regions of the material not implanted are left undamaged. The rate of recombination of electrons and holes is increased in the damaged regions of the pattern compared to undamaged regions. In the photochemical dry etching step which follows ion implanting step, the material in the undamaged regions of the semiconductor are removed substantially faster than in the damaged regions representing the pattern, leaving the ion-implanted, damaged regions as raised surface structures on the semiconductor material. After completion of photochemical dry etching step, the thermal annealing step is used to restore the electrical conductivity of the damaged regions of the semiconductor material.

Electronic-carrier-controlled photochemical etching process in

The sensitivity of an integrated circuit to single-event upsets is decreased by providing a dissi

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David R Myers