Electrical Carrier Mobility Measurements of Amorphous Hydrogenated Boron Carbide Using Space-Charge-Limited Current Techniques
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Abstract
Within the field of neutron detection, there has been a push to develop solid-state direct-conversion devices. Amorphous hydrogenated boron carbide (a-BxC:Hy) is of particular interest for this purpose because it has a high thermal neutron capture crosssection and high resistivity. To develop an a-BxC:Hy based neutron detector, it is very important to know its charge carrier mobility. Because a-BxC:Hy has a high resistivity and an expectedly low mobility, traditional techniques for measuring mobility, like DC Hall, are not viable. To determine the mobility of a-BxC:Hy, measurement systems based on the steady-state space-charge-limited current (SS-SCLC) and dark-injection space-chargelimited current (DI-SCLC) techniques were developed to get beyond the low mobility limitation. The mobility measurements were performed on a series of a-BxC:Hy samples to determine the range of mobility values and to set a baseline for future research in optimizing the mobility. The samples were found to have very low values for mobility, typically in the range of 10⁻¹² to 10⁻⁹ cm²/(V·s). While this indicates that a-BxC:Hy is unsuitable for thick-film neutron detection, the range in mobility and resistivity values suggests that it can potentially be improved. As such, further research is necessary before an a-BxC:Hy based neutron detector can be fully realized.
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Introduction -- Theory -- Experimental setup -- Results and discussion -- Conclusion -- Appendix A. SS-SCLC data -- Appendix B. DI-SCLC data
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