Substrate and Passivation Techniques for Flexible Amorphous Silicon-Based X-ray Detectors

Flexible active matrix display technology has been adapted to create new flexible photo-sensing electronic devices, including flexible X-ray detectors. Monolithic integration of amorphous silicon (a-Si) PIN photodiodes on a flexible substrate poses significant challenges associated with the intrinsic film stress of amorphous silicon. This paper examines how altering device structuring and diode passivation layers can greatly improve the electrical performance and the mechanical reliability of the device, thereby eliminating one of the major weaknesses of a-Si PIN diodes in comparison to alternative photodetector technology, such as organic bulk heterojunction photodiodes and amorphous selenium. A dark current of 0.5 pA/mm² and photodiode quantum efficiency of 74% are possible with a pixelated diode structure with a silicon nitride/SU-8 bilayer passivation structure on a 20 µm-thick polyimide substrate.