Iron detection in the part per quadrillion range in silicon using surface photovoltage and photodissociation of iron-boron pairs

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Abstract
The photodissociation of iron‐boron pairs in p‐type silicon produces lifetime killing interstitial iron and may be combined with noncontact surface photovoltage (SPV) measurement of the minority carrier diffusion length to achieve fast detection of iron. We found that, for iron concentrations ranging from 8×108 to 1×1013 atoms/cm3, the pair dissociation using a white light (10 W/cm2) was completed within 15 s. Surface recombination was a major rate limiting factor. Passivation of the surface enhanced the rate by as much as a factor of 20. The photodissociation rate increased with increasing temperature, however, the increase was smaller than that of the thermal dissociation rate. These characteristics are consistent with a previously proposed recombination enhanced dissociation mechanism. For practical iron detection, it is important that the detection limit of the approach is close to one part per quadrillion.