Lateral photovoltaic effect and electron transport observed in Cr nano-film.

Lateral photovoltaic effect (LPE) can be used in position-sensitive detectors (PSDs) and has a wide application in a variety of optical transducers and sensors. In this report, a large LPE with sensitivity of 42mV/mm is observed in metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) structure of Cr/SiO(2)/Si. Through measuring current-voltage characteristics, we find that electron transport property in dark plays a key role and an appropriate metal thickness is crucial for obtaining a large LPE. This result is useful for applications and may explore a way to study the electron transport mechanism in nano-films' MOS structures.