Interaction of hydrogen and thermal donor defects in silicon

Abstract
We have studied the interaction of hydrogen with thermal donors in silicon using transient capacitance and current spectroscopy. We find that a large degree of thermal donor passivation (a factor of 40) can be achieved by hydrogen plasma exposure at 120 °C. The residual electrical activity is shown to arise from perturbed E(0.07) and E(0.15) donor states. Annealing at 200 °C almost completely reactivates the low concentration of thermal donors present in these samples. A model involving different incorporation sites for hydrogen is proposed to explain the results.