Gallium phosphide junctions with low leakage for energy conversion and near ultraviolet detectors

There is a need for semiconductor junctions with very low leakage for energy conversion from low level radioactive or radio‐luminescent sources, and low noise blue‐green photodiodes. We report the properties of two types of GaP junctions; a Schottky barrier of Pd on liquid phase epitaxy grown n‐type GaP and a p+ over n junction grown by metal‐organic chemical vapor deposition. Both types of junctions show very low leakage currents and good efficiency for power conversion from low level beta particles, x rays, and blue‐green light.