Impact of incomplete ionization of dopants on the electrical properties of compensated p-type silicon

This paper investigates the importance of incomplete ionization of dopants in compensated p-type Si and its impact on the majority-carrier density and mobility and thus on the resistivity. Both theoretical calculations and temperature-dependent Hall-effect measurements demonstrate that the carrier density is more strongly affected by incomplete ionization in compensated Si than in uncompensated Si with the same net doping. The previously suggested existence of a compensation-specific scattering mechanism to explain the reduction of mobility in compensated Si is shown not to be consistent with the T-dependence of the measured carrier mobility. The experiment also shows that, in the vicinity of 300 K, the resistivity of compensated Si has a much weaker dependence on temperature than that of uncompensated silicon. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3686151]