Computer analysis of surface recombination process at Si and compound semiconductor surfaces and behavior of surface recombination velocity

A theoretical analysis of the surface recombination is performed for n-Si, GaAs and InP surfaces under photo-excitation in terms of the so-called effective surface recombination velocity S-eff. A very strong dependence of S-eff both on the excitation light intensity and the surface fixed charge density has been found. S-eff reaches its maximum when n(s) approximate to p(s), independently on the light intensity. S-eff can be significantly reduced by shift of the surface Fermi level towards band edges by means of the surface fixed charge Q(FC) or by appropriately reducing or reshaping the surface state density distribution.