Forward bias induced annealing of the E center in silicon

Abstract
It has been well established that the annealing of the E center (phosphorus vacancy) in Si is charge state dependent with the recovery proceeding more rapidly in the neutral charge state than in the negative state. Herein, we report for the first time a third annealing condition with a strongly enhanced annealing rate for the E center: forward bias induced recovery with a significantly lower activation energy of 0.48 eV.