Boron-Carbide and Boron Rich Rhobohedral Based Transistors and Tunnel Diodes

Authors

• Peter A. Dowben, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

July 2003

Comments

Patent NO.: US 6,600,177 B2

Abstract

The present invention relates to the fabrication of a boron carbide/boron semiconductor devices. The results suggest that with respect to the approximately 2 eV band gap pure boron material, 0.9 eV band gap boron carbide (B₅C) acts as a p-type material. Both boron and boron carbide (B₅C) thin films were fabricated from single source borane cage molecules using plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). Epitaxial growth does not appear to be a requirement. We have doped boron carbide grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The source gas close- 1,2-dicarbadecaborane (orthocarborane) was used to grow the boron carbide while nickelocene (Ni(C₅H₅)2) was used to introduce nickel into the growing film. The doping of nickel transformed a B₅C material p-type relative to lightly doped n-type silicon to an n-type material. Both p-n heterojunction diodes and n-p heterojunction diodes with n- and p-type Si [1,1,1] respectively. With sufficient partial pressures of nickelocene in the plasma reactor diodes with characteristic tunnel diode behavior can be successfully fabricated.