The Role of Charge and Recombination‐Enhanced Defect Reaction Effects in the Dissociation of FeB Pairs in p‐Type Silicon under Carrier Injection

Abstract

The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/pssr.202000520.

Modeling the Charge State of Monatomic Hydrogen and Other Defects with Arbitrary Concentrations in Crystalline Silicon

“…Knowledge of the charge states of monatomic hydrogen (H), and other deep‐level defects in Si, has been found to be crucial in understanding the prevailing forms [ 1,2 ] and transport [ 3,4 ] of H in Si, the interactions between H and dissolved transition metals in Si, [ 5–11 ] as well as other point‐defect reactions in Si. [ 12–15 ] A unified model for predicting the charge states of H and other deep‐level defects in Si was described in our previous works. [ 16,17 ] Four models in the literature 1) the Fermi distribution, 2) the Shockley–Last model, [ 18 ] 3) the Shockley–Read–Hall (SRH) model, [ 19,20 ] and 4) the Sah–Shockley model [ 21 ] were summarized by the general occupancy ratio, which was demonstrated to universally apply to the charge state prediction of both mono‐ and multivalent defects in both thermal equilibrium and non‐equilibrium steady‐state conditions.…”

“…Under this condition, the unified model predicts ≈80% H to be positively charged, while the electron quasi‐Fermi level approximation predicts >99% H atoms negatively charged. In the second study, [ 15 ] the dissociated fraction of FeB pairs in p‐Si with [B − ] = 1.4 × 10 15 cm −3 was experimentally determined to be 10–80% under different injection levels from 4 × 10 12 cm −3 to 4 × 10 13 cm −3 at 296 K. Contradicting this, the electron quasi‐Fermi level approximation predicts >95% pairs to be dissociated under an injection level as low as 10 11 cm −3 .…”