On the mechanism of recombination at oxide precipitates in silicon

Oxide precipitates are well known to degrade minority carrier lifetime in silicon, but the mechanism by which they act as recombination centres is not fully understood. We report minority carrier lifetime measurements on oxide precipitate-containing silicon which has been intentionally contaminated...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied physics letters 2013-01, Vol.102 (4)
Main Authors: Murphy, J. D., Bothe, K., Voronkov, V. V., Falster, R. J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Contamination
Crystal defects
Density
Minority carriers
Oxides
Precipitates
Precipitation
Silicon
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Summary:Oxide precipitates are well known to degrade minority carrier lifetime in silicon, but the mechanism by which they act as recombination centres is not fully understood. We report minority carrier lifetime measurements on oxide precipitate-containing silicon which has been intentionally contaminated with iron. Analysis of the injection-dependence of lifetime demonstrates the same recombination centres exist in iron-contaminated and not intentionally contaminated samples, with the state density scaling with iron loss from the bulk. This shows that recombination activity arises from impurity atoms segregated to oxide precipitates and/or surrounding crystallographic defects.
ISSN:0003-6951
1077-3118
DOI:10.1063/1.4789858