Simulation of photogenerated current of PN silicon photodetector enhanced by impurity photovoltaic effect

Silicon photodiodes have proved to be excellent detectors in the visible wave length range. On the other hand, high-performance photodetectors development remains needed. This research paper will focus on the calculation and improvement of photogenerated current of PN silicon photodetectors enhanced by the impurity photovoltaic effect. Various parameters that affect the behavior of the photogenerated current will be analyzed and studied using simulation techniques, namely MATLAB. Other aspects for the improvement of the device will include the responsiveness and the extension of the operating wavelength range. Different types and densities of impurities will be considered, analyzed and discussed. Four metallic impurities are used in the simulation, which are namely boron, indium, gallium, and aluminum. On the issue of validation of the data obtained from in this paper a practical investigation was conducted in a separate research work which involved laboratory preparation of silicon samples with indium or aluminum. Only one figure out of many will be presented in this paper. It will be seen that the variation of the photogenerated current with wavelength has a similar profile, which indicates the good agreement of the results