Semi-conductive carbon from industrial tea waste biomass for a p-n junction

Abstract

Some semiconducting carbonaceous material was developed from industrial tea waste biomass by catalytic pyrolysis and heteroatom doping; then, a p-n junction was realized on an n-type Si substrate. I-V characteristics of the structures revealed that each structure had a different reverse saturation current, ideality factor, cut-in voltage and series resistance. The variations in the characteristics are attributed to the amorphous and non-uniform nature of the carbonaceous material. Due to the high resistivity of the carbonaceous material, a significant amount of series resistance was present in the characteristics, resulting in very small levels of current that would inhibit the practical use of the structure as a semiconductor diode in electronic circuits.