San Haisheng, Yao Shulin, Wang Xiang, Cheng Zaijun, Chen Xuyuan
Department of Physics, School of Physical and Mechanical & Electrical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, People's Republic of China.
Appl Radiat Isot. 2013 Oct;80:17-22. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2013.05.010. Epub 2013 Jun 4.
The current paper presents a theoretical analysis of Ni-63 nuclear micro-battery based on a wide-band gap semiconductor GaN thin-film covered with thin Ni/Au films to form Schottky barrier for carrier separation. The total energy deposition in GaN was calculated using Monte Carlo methods by taking into account the full beta spectral energy, which provided an optimal design on Schottky barrier width. The calculated results show that an 8 μm thick Schottky barrier can collect about 95% of the incident beta particle energy. Considering the actual limitations of current GaN growth technique, a Fe-doped compensation technique by MOCVD method can be used to realize the n-type GaN with a carrier concentration of 1×10(15) cm(-3), by which a GaN based Schottky betavoltaic micro-battery can achieve an energy conversion efficiency of 2.25% based on the theoretical calculations of semiconductor device physics.
本文基于覆盖有Ni/Au薄膜以形成用于载流子分离的肖特基势垒的宽带隙半导体GaN薄膜，对Ni-63核微电池进行了理论分析。通过考虑完整的β光谱能量，使用蒙特卡罗方法计算了GaN中的总能量沉积，这为肖特基势垒宽度提供了优化设计。计算结果表明，8μm厚的肖特基势垒可以收集约95%的入射β粒子能量。考虑到当前GaN生长技术的实际限制，可采用MOCVD方法的Fe掺杂补偿技术来实现载流子浓度为1×10(15) cm(-3)的n型GaN，基于半导体器件物理的理论计算，由此GaN基肖特基β伏特微电池可实现2.25%的能量转换效率。
