Electrical passivation of silicon surface by a polyelectrolyte coating

The influence of a cationic polyelectrolyte (PE) monolayer on the electrical properties of single crystals of p -Si with different doping levels was studied. It is demonstrated that photostimulated PE adsorption on p -Si provides an additional tenfold decrease in effective density of surface electronic states as compared to passivation by PE adsorption in the dark. Maximum effect is observed for the characteristic times of “fast” states in p -Si with higher doping levels.