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Novel semiconducting boron carbide/pyridine polymers for neutron detection at zero bias

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Abstract

Thin films containing aromatic pyridine moieties bonded to boron, in the partially dehydrogenated boron-rich icosahedra (B10C2HX), prove to be an effective material for neutron detection applications when deposited on n-doped (100) silicon substrates. The characteristic I–V curves for the heterojunction diodes exhibit strong rectification and largely unperturbed normalized reverse bias leakage currents with increasing pyridine content. The neutron capture generated pulses from these heterojunction diodes were obtained at zero bias voltage although without the signatures of complete electron-hole collection. These results suggest that modifications to boron carbide may result in better neutron voltaic materials.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (Grant No. HDTRA1-09-1-0060) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through Grant 13-EPSCoR-0012. The authors would like to thank Adrien LaVoie for supplying the Si(100) wafers and Shireen Adenwalla for technical assistance and discussion, Gregory S. Engel for the suggestion of pyrazine, A.N. Caruso, for suggestions regarding the signal to noise issues, and George Peterson for the capacitance measurements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Theodore Jorgensen Hall, 855 North 16th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68588-0299, USA

    Elena Echeverría, A. Enders & P. A. Dowben

  2. Department of Chemistry, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle #305070, Denton, TX, 76203, USA

    Robinson James, Umesh Chiluwal, Frank L. Pasquale, Richard Gapfizi, Jae-Do Tae, M. Sky Driver & Jeffry A. Kelber

  3. Center for Energy Sciences Research, 230 Whittier, 2200 Vine Street, Lincoln, NE, 68583-0857, USA

    Juan A. Colón Santana

  4. PECVD Business Unit, Lam Research Corporation, 11155 SW Leveton Dr., Tualatin, OR, 97062, USA

    Frank L. Pasquale

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  1. Elena Echeverría
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Correspondence to Elena Echeverría.

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Elena Echeverría and Robinson James have contributed equally to this work.

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Echeverría, E., James, R., Chiluwal, U. et al. Novel semiconducting boron carbide/pyridine polymers for neutron detection at zero bias. Appl. Phys. A 118, 113–118 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-014-8778-4

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