Substrate preparation and low-temperature boron doped silicon growth on wafer-scale charge-coupled devices by molecular beam epitaxy

Silicon charge-coupled devices (CCDs) are extensively used for commercial and scientific imaging in the visible to near-infrared wavelength range of 450 to 850 nm. Ground-based astronomers require large-scale high-performance CCDs with high sensitivity at wavelengths from the 320 nm atmospheric cutoff to 900 nm. We report on wafer-scale low-temperature silicon molecular beam epitaxy to enable ultraviolet (UV) detection utilizing silicon-fabrication-facility-compatible surface preparation. Characterization of the UV response-enhanced backside-illuminated CCDs fabricated with this technique show near 100% internal quantum efficiency in the wavelength range of 200 to 900 nm. © 2002 American Vacuum Society.