Non‐destructive, room temperature characterization of wafer‐sized III–V semiconductor device structures using contactless electromodulation and wavelength‐modulated surface photovoltage spectroscopy

Abstract

We review the use of the contactless methods of photoreflectance (PR), contactless electroreflectance (CER) and wavelength modulated differential surface photovoltage spectroscopy (DSPS) for the nondestructive, room temperature characterization of a wide variety of wafer-scale III -V semiconductor device structures. Some systems that will be discussed include heterojunction bipolar transistors (including the determination of the built-in fields/doping levels in the emitter and collector regions, alloy composition, and dc current gain factor), pseudomorphic GaAlAs/InGaAs/GaAs high electron mobility transistors (including the determination of the composition, width, and two-dimensional electron gas density in the channel), InGaAsP/InP quantum well edge emitting lasers (including the detection of p-dopant interdiffusion), vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (determination of fundamental conduction to heavy-hole excitonic transition and cavity mode).

Optoelectric Properties of GaInP p-i-n Solar Cells with Different i-Layer Thicknesses

“…Based on the Franze and Keldysh theory [15], Shen et al proposed a precise evaluation of the electric field strength by analyzing the period of FKOs existing in ER spectra [16,17]. Due to the advantages of noncontact and nondestructive methods, these efforts allow modulation spectroscopy a unique method for detecting the built-in electric field in diode and transistor structures [18][19][20]. For p-i-n solar cells, a high electric field is built across the i-layer by the Fermi level difference between the p-and n-doped layers.…”

Characterization of Zn0.95‐xBex Mn0.05Se mixed crystals by photoluminescence and contactless electroreflectance

“…In CER measurements [8], an ac modulating voltage (~1 kV at 200 Hz) was applied between the front wire grid electrode and the second electrode consisting of a metal plate. The radiation from a 150 W xenon arc lamp filtered by a Photon Technology Inc. 0.25 m monochromator provided the monochromatic excitation light source.…”

Designing a Robust Kelvin Probe Setup Optimized for Long-Term Surface Photovoltage Acquisition

“…In this context, a promising and very versatile contactless technique to characterize the (surface- and interface-related) distribution of defect states in wide-bandgap materials and to extract their parameters is provided by the analysis of the surface photovoltage [ 5 ] as a function of: wavelength (known as surface photovoltage spectroscopy (SPS) [ 6 , 7 , 8 ]), light intensity, time (SPV transients), or temperature and time (SPV-based deep-level transient spectroscopy [ 9 ] (SPV-DLTS) [ 10 , 11 ]). …”