Recombination-enhanced Dislocation Glides—The Current Status of Knowledge

Abstract

To update the status of knowledge on the recombination-enhanced dislocation glide (REDG) in semiconductors, which is one of the causes of serious degradation in bipolar devices, research progress achieved for the last decade has been surveyed. Rather than presenting a complete review over a wide range of material systems, particular attention has been paid to the REDG effect in 4H-SiC for which a lot of information has been accumulated owing to extensive studies. Although the REDG effect exhibits features that could be interpreted in terms of the phonon-kick mechanism, conclusive proof is still lacking.

Phonon-Kick Mechanism for Defect Reactions in Semiconductors

“…The latter is very serious in light-emitting devices since it limits the efficiency and is also considered to be a trigger of the defect reaction (phonon-kick mechanism), resulting in the degradation of devices. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] A nonradiative recombination at a defect consists of a pair of successive captures of an electron in the conduction band and a hole in the valence band. For example, in p-type semiconductors, a minority electron is first captured by a defect that usually shows the Arrhenius-type capture probability with the thermal activation energy E e act (see Fig.…”