Lithography-Free, Low-Cost Method for Improving Photodiode Performance by Etching Silicon Nanocones as Antireflection Layer

TL;DR

This paper presents a simple, low-cost lithography-free method to enhance photodiode efficiency by etching silicon nanocones, significantly reducing reflectivity and boosting quantum efficiency and responsivity.

Contribution

It introduces a novel three-step, high-throughput process to create nanocone antireflection layers on photodiodes without lithography, improving performance.

Findings

Reflectivity decreased by 66.1%

Quantum efficiency increased by 27%

Responsivity increased by 25.7%

Abstract

A three-step process has been demonstrated to improve the performance of photodiode by creating nanocone forest on the surface of photodiode as an antireflection layer. This high-throughput, low-cost process has been shown to decrease the reflectivity by 66.1%, enhance the quantum efficiency by 27%, and increase the responsivity by 25.7%. This low-cost manufacture process can be applied to increase the responsivity of silicon based photonic devices.