SIMPLE TRANSIENT SOLUTIONS FOR PHOTOCONDUCTION AND THE SPACE-CHARGE FIELD IN A PHOTOREFRACTIVE MATERIAL WITH SHALLOW TRAPS

We have found simple analytical solutions for the coupled differential equations that are commonly used to describe unipolar photoconduction in a homogeneous material with shallow traps. Our solutions cover transient photoconduction in the dark after an initial low-intensity pulse of light creates some spatial pattern of photoexcited carriers. We assume that there is no conduction in equilibrium in the dark. Our solutions introduce two parameters to describe the shallow traps: a mean time between trapping events in the conduction band and a mean time spent in a shallow trap. When used to analyze extensive experimental data on a particular sensitive crystal of n-type cubic Bi12SiO20, our solutions predict an observed, but unexpected, dependence of carrier grating decays (in the dark) on applied electric field. The solutions also correlate transient photoconductivity results with grating-decay behavior both in the dark and under uniform illumination, giving a mean time between shallow traps in the conduction band of 26+/-3 ns, and a mean time of 800+/-300 ns spent in a shallow trap. A value mu(c), = 5+/-3 cm2/(V s) is inferred for the electron mobility in the conduction band between trapping events. Also, the electron diffusion length inferred from our solutions matches that observed previously by light-induced grating decays.