Temperature and injection dependence of the Shockley–Read–Hall lifetime in electron irradiated n-type silicon

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Using three measurement techniques the injection and temperature dependence of the Shockley–Read–Hall (SRH) carrier lifetime was studied. Flying‐spot scanning was used for the measurement of lifetimes under low‐level injection. Open‐circuit carrier decay for the measurement of high‐injection lifetime, and deep‐level transient spectroscopy for the characterization of active recombination centers. The samples were silicon p‐i‐n type diodes (p+‐n‐n+) irradiated with 15 MeV electrons for lifetime control. The measurements consistently show that two defect levels located at Ec−0.164 eV (E1) correlated to the vacancy‐oxygen complex and Ec−0.421 eV (E4) correlated to the single‐negatively charged state of the divacancy are significant for the SRH lifetime in different injection domains in the low‐doped n‐type region. The E1 recombination center is dominating the high‐injection lifetime and the E4 center is dominating the low‐injection lifetime. Similar to other authors, additional defect levels have also been observed, but the E1 and E4 levels seem sufficient to explain the behavior of electron‐irradiated semiconductor power devices.