4H-SiC Schottky alphavoltaic nuclear battery

A 4H-SiC Schottky alphavoltaic nuclear battery is presented. It uses a Schottky barrier in place of the commonly used p-n diode, along with Am as the radioactive source. Some of the critical steps in process integration for fabricating Silicon carbide-based Schottky diode were addressed. Under illumination of Am with activity of 0.025 mCi/cm² , an open circuit voltage( V_OC) of 0.25 V and a short circuit current density (J _sc) of 7.64 nA/cm² are measured. The maximum output power density( P_max) of 1. 12 nW/cm² is obtained. And using XRD to analyse the composition of ohmic contact, the XRD analysis result shows that binary alloy phase Ni₂Si is demonstrated. The study results indicate that careful design and fabrication process without impurities of the Schottky diode structure should be carried out to prevent bringing about an increased density of interface states, resulting in an increased dark current. 4H-SiC Schottky diodes were fabricated, taking into consideration all the important aspects discussed in this paper, and the performance of this battery is expected to be significantly improved by using larger activity and more efficient collection and optimizing the design and processing technology of the battery.