Laplace-transform deep-level transient spectroscopy studies of the G4 gold–hydrogen complex in silicon

Deixler, P.; Terry, Jonathan G.; Hawkins, I. D.; Evans–Freeman, J.H.; Peaker, А. R.; Rubaldo, L.; Maude, D. K.; Portal, J. C.; Dobaczewski, L.; Nielsen, K. Bonde; Larsen, A. Nylandsted; Mesli, A.

doi:10.1063/1.122694

Cited by 31 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Figure 5 illustrates the small shift observed which is barely detectable in conventional DLTS but can be seen clearly with the Laplace DLTS technique 29. Annealing at 250 °C removes the hydrogen from the gold resulting in a reduction of the G4 peak and an increase in the Au peak 24. The reaction is reversible in the presence of free hydrogen.…”

Section: Metallic Contamination In Single Crystalsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Recombination via point defects and their complexes in solar silicon

Peaker

Markevich

Hamilton

et al. 2012

Physica Status Solidi (a)

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Electronic grade Czochralski and float zone silicon in the as grown state have a very low concentration of recombination generation centers (typically <1010 cm−3). Consequently, in integrated circuit technologies using such material, electrically active inadvertent impurities and structural defects are rarely detectable. The quest for cheap photovoltaic cells has led to the use of less pure silicon, multi‐crystalline material, and low cost processing for solar applications. Cells made in this way have significant extrinsic recombination mechanisms. In this paper we review recombination involving defects and impurities in single crystal and in multi‐crystalline solar silicon. Our main techniques for this work are recombination lifetime mapping measurements using microwave detected photoconductivity decay and variants of deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS). In particular, we use Laplace DLTS to distinguish between isolated point defects, small precipitate complexes and decorated extended defects. We compare the behavior of some common metallic contaminants in solar silicon in relation to their effect on carrier lifetime and cell efficiency. Finally, we consider the role of hydrogen passivation in relation to transition metal contaminants, grain boundaries and dislocations. We conclude that recombination via point defects can be significant but in most multi‐crystalline material the dominant recombination path is via decorated dislocation clusters within grains with little contribution to the overall recombination from grain boundaries.

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Section: Metallic Contamination In Single Crystalsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Recombination via point defects and their complexes in solar silicon

Peaker

Markevich

Hamilton

et al. 2012

Physica Status Solidi (a)

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“…Hence algorithms for analyzing the components in the raw capacitance transient have been developed, 7,8 and used with considerable success to resolve some long standing defect problems in silicon. [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] This technique is commonly termed Laplace DLTS ͑LDLTS͒ and it produces an output of intensity as a function of emission rate. The area under each peak is directly related to the initial concentration of thermally emitting traps.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High resolution minority carrier transient spectroscopy of Si/SiGe/Si quantum wells

Gad¹,

Evans–Freeman²

2002

Journal of Applied Physics

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We have developed a high resolution technique for examining minority carrier emission from defect states in semiconductors called Laplace minority carrier transient spectroscopy (LMCTS). The experiment uses the same analytical approach to the capacitance transient as Laplace deep level transient spectroscopy (LDLTS), but minority carriers are injected into the depletion region by application of a suitable light pulse. The combination of LDLTS and LMCTS means that detailed emission properties of closely spaced majority and minority carrier traps across the whole band gap can be now characterized. The technique has been used to study minority carrier traps in gas source molecular beam epitaxy-grown Si/Si0.86Ge0.14 strained quantum wells. Initially the technique was evaluated by comparing LMCTS of a hole trap associated with the gold–hydrogen complex in n-type silicon with LDLTS of the same trap in p-type silicon. Both techniques confirm that this level consists of two states, as previously suggested in the literature. LMCTS was then applied to an n-type multiquantum well Si/SiGe layer. We have been able to measure directly the emission rate of holes out of SiGe quantum wells using LMCTS. The emission rate exhibited only slight temperature dependence, in strong contrast to that of holes which are thermally emitted from isolated point defects. We show that in the particular case of LMCTS, a temperature invariant emission rate out of quantum wells is to be expected, and this is consistent with theoretical predictions.

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“…Evidence for the (−/0) levels of AuH 2 has been more difficult to obtain. However, recent Laplace DLTS studies has been able to decompose G4 into three separate defects with close-by levels [172,173].…”

Section: Electrical Levels Of Tm-h Defectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hydrogenation of substitutional TM centres can shift the position of the deep levels due to the impurity [164,165,166,167,168,169,170,171,172,173,174].…”

Section: Transition Metal-hydrogen Defectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, it has been difficult to cross-correlate these studies. It seems essential to include information from other studies such as minority-carrier transient spectroscopy (MCTS) [171] and Laplace DLTS (LDLTS) [172,173]. MCTS permits the measurement of the capture of electrons by hole traps in the lower part of the bandgap, or the capture of holes by electron traps near the conduction band edge.…”

Section: Experimental Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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