Doping dependence of the carrier lifetime crossover point upon dissociation of iron-boron pairs in crystalline silicon

The excess carrier density at which the carrier lifetime in crystalline silicon remains unchanged after dissociating iron-boron pairs, known as the crossover point, is reported as a function of the boron dopant concentration. Modeling this doping dependence with the Shockley-Read-Hall model does not require knowledge of the iron concentration and suggests a possible refinement of reported values of the capture cross sections for electrons and holes of the acceptor level of iron-boron pairs. In addition, photoluminescence-based measurements were found to offer some distinct advantages over traditional photoconductance-based techniques in determining recombination parameters from low-injection carrier lifetimes. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.