Electron beam induced annealing of defects in GaAs

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Abstract
It has recently been shown that minority‐carrier injection greatly increases the annealing rate of 1‐MeV electron damage in GaAs. Energy deposited during nonradiative recombination at the radiation damage defects has been shown by Kimerling and Lang to be responsible for this effect. We have confirmed this effect in experiments in which carrier injection was achieved by 15–45‐keV electron irradiation. The annealing process was monitored during irradiation by measurement of the charge collected at a p‐n junction within the material. Carrier lifetime improvements of 100% were observed, and could be produced at rates 100 times faster than those reported by Kimerling and Lang when focused electron beam annealing was employed. Dislocations were observed to act as sinks for the defects. Focused electron beam annealing was employed to ’’write’’ annealed patterns in GaAs.