Improved concept for NIPIIN and PIIIN color sensitive two-terminal devices with high linearity

The detection of the fundamental components of the visible light (blue, green, red) is achieved with two terminal photo diodes based on amorphous silicon. By changing the bias voltage the preferential carrier collection region is shifted which leads to a color sensitivity. In order to obtain a high dynamic range, independent voltage controlled spectral response awes as well as a linear response of the photocurrent on the incident light intensity the mu tau-product and the bandgap in the device have to be specially designed to deconvolute the optical signal and generate an RGB-signal. Since the light intensity can strongly influence the spectral sensitivity by recharging of defect states, an optimized design of the multi-layer structure is necessary. Therefore, an improved concept for the design of nipiin- and piiin-detectors is presented which results in a good suppression of these non-linearities. Our concept is based on a decreasing bandgap profile from the front to the back contact and an increasing CL mu tau-product of the individual i-layers in direction of the p-layer.