LV. Mesures en Fonction de la Té mperature du Couranl dans les Jonctions de Germanium n-p†

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Abstract
The inverse current Io of several n-p germanium junctions obtained by drawing is studied between — 50° c and I00° c ; the curves of log I0 against l/ T show that for temperatures higher than about 10° c the inverse current is in good agreement with (a) the formula given by Shockley the Shockley-Read theory of the mechanism of recombination On the other hand, for temperatures lower than 10° C the inverse current arises from the generation of electron-hole pairs in the space charge layer. Below — 50° c the inverse current becomes less than10 − 10 from — 50° c to the temperature of liquid nitrogen the forward current at constant voltage is measured ; the set of curves of log Idagainst l/ T can be interpreted on the Shockley-Read theory by supposing that the current-voltage characteristic of the junction is where varies from 1 to 2. In a calculation given in the appendix it is shown that this results directly from the hypothesis that, even in forward bias, the generation and recombination in the space charge layer are the main process. The measurements allow several determinations of the position of the centres of recombination in the forbidden band to be obtained in the case of a junction containing a trace of copper a level is found at 0-23 ov below the valency band.