A betavoltaic microbattery based on PIN diodes

A betavoltaic Microbattery was studied.The diode was composed of a PIN structure with an active area of 10 mm×10 mm to collect the charge from a 10mCi Ni-63 source.An open circuit voltage of 0.16 V and a short circuit current density of 67.6 nA/cm2 were measured.An efficiency (η) of 1.44% was obtained.The performance of device was limited by high series resistance,edge recombination and attenuation of electron in PIN diodes.It is expected to be improved by optimizing the design and using more suitable radioisotope.