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

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 E(c)-0.164 eV (E1) correlated to the vacancy-oxygen complex and E(c)-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 a-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. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.