A conductive surface coating for Si-CNT radiation detectors

• ITO was deposited by Ion Beam Sputtering on MWCNT.
• ITO on CNT makes an inter-diffusion layer of the order of one hundred nanometers.
• Improvements of quantum efficiency of photon detectors based on CNT with ITO.

Silicon–Carbon Nanotube radiation detectors need an electrically conductive coating layer to avoid the nanotube detachment from the silicon substrate and uniformly transmit the electric field to the entire nanotube active surface. Coating material must be transparent to the radiation of interest, and must provide the drain voltage necessary to collect charges generated by incident photons. For this purpose various materials have been tested and proposed in photodetector and photoconverter applications. In this article interface properties and electrical contact behavior of Indium Tin Oxide films on Carbon Nanotubes have been analyzed. Ion Beam Sputtering has been used to grow the transparent conductive layer on the nanotubes. The films were deposited at room temperature with Oxygen/Argon mixture into the sputtering beam, at fixed current and for different beam energies. Optical and electrical analyses have been performed on films. Surface chemical analysis and in depth profiling results obtained by X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy of the Indium Tin Oxide layer on nanotubes have been used to obtain the interface composition. Results have been applied in photodetectors realization based on multi wall Carbon Nanotubes on silicon.