Boron-implanted black silicon photodiode with close-to-ideal responsivity from 200 to 1000 nm

Detection of UV light has traditionally been a major challenge for Si photodiodes due to reflectance losses and junction recombination. Here we overcome these problems by combining a nanostructured surface with an optimized implanted junction and compare the obtained performance to state-of-the-art commercial counterparts. We achieve a significant improvement in responsivity, reaching near ideal values at wavelengths all the way from 200 to 1000 nm. Dark current, detectivity, and rise time are in turn shown to be on a similar level. The presented detector design allows a highly sensitive operation over a wide wavelength range without making major compromises regarding the simplicity of the fabrication or other figures of merit relevant to photodiodes.