In this work, we present a design and characterization of Schottky barrier Au/n-Si/Li based UV-VIS photodiode for application, such as solar UV monitoring, flame sensors and UV astronomy. The Schottky photodiode was realized with a thin layer of gold (Au) at the front side of high purity n-type silicon and lithium (Li) on the back side as back-surface-field (Li-BSF). The Li-BSF used was a new method which allow us to modulate and choice the depletion width. I-V characteristic, capacitance and spectral response were performed, the results were found in agreement with those determined by simulation method. A quantum efficiency (QE) of 47% at about 550 nm wavelength was obtained using only a thin gold layer as sensitive area. The thickness of gold used on the photodiode was around 125 (C), where 58% of light transmission was carried out. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.