The photogenerated excess carriers’ influence on the temperature distribution and thermoelastic photoacoustic signals of n-type silicon excited with a light source of modulated intensity is theoretically investigated for modulation frequencies ranging from 1 to 107 Hz. This is done by comparing the amplitude and the phase of the temperature and photoacoustic signals with and without the presence of excess carriers, giving special attention to the presence of characteristic peaks of the amplitude ratios and phase differences between the signals at the front and rear sample surfaces. It is shown that these peaks can be understood as the fingerprints of the excess carrier presence in the semiconductor. Furthermore, the strong dependence of the temperature distribution on the carrier recombination processes at the surfaces of thin samples is quantified and found to drastically change the thermoelastic component of the photoacoustic signal.
The temperature distributions in the n-type silicon circular plate, excited
by a frequency-modulated light source from one side, are investigated
theoretically in the frequency domain. The influence of the photogenerated
excess carrier density on the temperature distributions is considered with
respect to the sample thickness, surface quality and carrier lifetime. The
presence of the thermalization and non-radiative recombination processes are
taken into account. The existence of the fast and slow heat sources in the
sample is recognized. It is shown that the temperature distribution on sample
surfaces is a sensitive function of an excess carrier density under a bulk
and surface recombination. The most favorable values of surface velocities
ratio and bulk lifetime are established, assigned for a simpler and more
effective analysis of the carrier influence in semiconductors. The
photothermal and photoacoustic transmission detection configuration is
proposed as a most suitable experimental scheme for the investigation of the
excess carrier influence on the silicon surface temperatures. [Project of the
Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant
no. ON171016]
The paper discusses the most common impacts of the measuring system on the amplitude and phase of the photoacoustic signals in the frequency domain using the opencell experimental setup. The highest signal distortions are detected at the ends of the observed modulation frequency range from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. The attenuation of the signal is observed at lower frequencies, caused by the electronic filtering of the microphone and sound card, with characteristic frequencies of 15 Hz and 25 Hz. At higher frequencies, the dominant signal distortions are caused by the microphone acoustic filtering, having characteristic frequencies around 9 kHz and 15 kHz. It has been found that the microphone incoherent noise, the so called flicker noise, is negligibly small in comparison to the signal and does not affect the signal shape. However, a coherent noise originating from the power modulation system of the light source significantly affects the shape of the signal in the range greater than 10 kHz. The effects of the coherent noise and measuring system influence are eliminated completely using the relevant signal correction procedure targeting the photoacoustic signal generated by the sample.
The reduction of the photogenerated charge carriers' influence in periodically illuminated thin silicon membranes is investigated by using the experimental setup of an open photoacoustic cell in the standard range of modulation frequencies from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. It is confirmed that the deposition of a 200 nm thin film of titanium dioxide on the 30- and 50 μm silicon membrane leads to a large increase of the thermoelastic component of the photoacoustic signal, which restores the flexibility lost to the membrane under the influence of photogenerated carriers. The effect of the thermoelastic component enhancement is analyzed by observing the displacement of the tested samples along the heat propagation axis, depending on the carrier density and temperature differences on the illuminated and unilluminated sides, for different membrane thicknesses and a constant film thickness. It is found that the effect of enhancement of several orders of magnitude is more visible in thinner membranes due to higher ratios between the film and membrane thicknesses.
In this paper, the possibility of determining the thermal, elastic and geometric characteristics of a thin TiO2 film deposited on a silicon substrate, with a thickness of 30 μm, in the frequency range of 20 to 20 kHz with neural networks were analysed. For this purpose, the geometric (thickness), thermal (thermal diffusivity, coefficient of linear expansion) and electronic parameters of substrates were known and constant in the two-layer model, while the following nano-layer thin-film parameters were changed: thickness, expansion and thermal diffusivity. Predictions of these three parameters of the thin-film were analysed separately with three neural networks. All of them together were joined by a fourth neural network. It was shown that the neural network, which analysed all three parameters at the same time, achieved the highest accuracy, so the use of networks that provide predictions for only one parameter is less reliable. The obtained results showed that the application of neural networks in determining the thermoelastic properties of a thin film on a supporting substrate enables the estimation of its characteristics with great accuracy.
The effect of the sample radius on the total photoacoustic signal processed by neural networks trained with undistorted and distorted signals is carefully analyzed for modulation frequencies from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. This is done for signals generated for a 400- μm-thick Si n-type plate, whose radius varies from 2 to 7 mm. It is found that the networks trained with both undistorted or distorted signals yield the best predictions for sample radii between 2 and 3 mm, which is close to the used microphone aperture radius of 1.5 mm. The network trained only with undistorted signals gives the best results for sample radii comparable to the microphone dimensions. The obtained results of neural networks in the prediction of Si-plate radius indicate the experimental necessity to use samples with radii slightly over to a microphone aperture.
The plasma-elastic component of the photoacoustic response in the time-domain of thin semiconductor samples excited by long electromagnetic radiation pulses is analyzed in detail. The plasma-elastic component model assumes that ambipolar diffusion can be approximated by the minority carrier diffusion. The results obtained show that the plasma-elastic component in thin semiconductor samples affects photoacoustic measurements in the time domain, which is important for the photoacoustic determination of semiconductor electronic properties.
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