Electronic properties and microstructure of nanoparticulate silicon systems for diode applications

Includes bibliographical references.In printed electronics the use of semiconducting silicon nanoparticles allows more than the simple printing of conductive materials. It gives the possibility of fabricating robust and inexpensive, active components. This work presents the design, fabrication, and characterization of Schottky barrier diodes using silicon nanoparticulate composites. Within this work it could be shown, that silicon nanoparticles produced by high energy milling can be used to replace the pigment in water-based graphic inks, which on curing have unique semiconducting properties, arising from the transport of charge through a percolation network of crystalline silicon nanoparticles. In this thesis scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), Raman spectroscopy, and mid-infrared scanning near-field optical microscopy (IR s-SNOM) were employed to investigate the micro-scale as well as the meso-scale structure of the printed particle networks and, more importantly the structure of the interface between particles. A close contact between lattice planes of different particles was observed, without the presence of a thick intervening oxide layer. Altogether, the results presented in this thesis suggest that highly doped silicon nanoparticles produced by high energy milling are suitable to be used for Schottky barrier diodes fabricated by screen printing. The saturation current of the diodes was about 0.11µA for reverse bias voltages up to 5V with an ideality factor of 10.6, and rectification ratios of approximately 10⁴ were observed