Hydrogen passivation of iron-related hole traps in silicon

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Abstract
We have investigated the passivation of iron‐related hole traps in p‐type silicon by deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) and recombination lifetime measurements. After hydrogen ion implantation (ranging in dose from 1.0×1014 to 1.0×1016 cm−2), all DLTS peaks related to iron impurities disappeared. This indicates that implanted hydrogen passivates the Fe‐B pair as well as other iron‐related hole traps that are not passivated by hydrogen plasma treatment. On the other hand, two kinds of hole traps were produced at Ev+0.23 eV and Ev+0.38 eV by the hydrogen ion implantation. The recombination lifetime increases from 3 to 18 μs (which is about 45% of the lifetime in uncontaminated samples) with the implantation dose. The maximum value of the recombination lifetime was observed at a dose of 1.0×1015 cm−2. We attribute the decrease in recombination lifetime in more heavily implanted samples (1.0×1016 cm−2) to hole traps created by the ion implantation.