Defect lifetime

Up to this point we have assumed implicitly that each defect responsible for the atomic motion has an infinite lifetime. In real crystals, however, this lifetime is finite because of the dynamic nature of the point defect equilibria. This means that only m consecutive jumps are correlated (corresponding to the defect lifetime). It has been shown [R. Kutner (1985)] that under these conditions... 

Radiative recombination of minority carriers is tlie most likely process in direct gap semiconductors. Since tlie carriers at tlie CB minimum and tlie VB maximum have tlie same momentum, very fast recombination can occur. The radiative recombination lifetimes in direct semiconductors are tlius very short, of tlie order of tlie ns. The presence of deep-level defects opens up a non-radiative recombination patli and furtlier shortens tlie carrier lifetime. 

The situation is very different in indirect gap materials where phonons must be involved to conserve momentum. Radiative recombination is inefficient, resulting in long lifetimes. The minority carrier lifetimes in Si reach many ms, again in tire absence of defects. It should be noted tliat long minority carrier lifetimes imply long diffusion lengtlis. Minority carrier lifetime can be used as a convenient quality benchmark of a semiconductor. 

Intrinsic defects (or native or simply defects ) are imperfections in tire crystal itself, such as a vacancy (a missing host atom), a self-interstitial (an extra host atom in an otherwise perfect crystalline environment), an anti-site defect (in an AB compound, tliis means an atom of type A at a B site or vice versa) or any combination of such defects. Extrinsic defects (or impurities) are atoms different from host atoms, trapped in tire crystal. Some impurities are intentionally introduced because tliey provide charge carriers, reduce tlieir lifetime, prevent tire propagation of dislocations or are otlierwise needed or useful, but most impurities and defects are not desired and must be eliminated or at least controlled. 

If tlie level(s) associated witli tlie defect are deep, tliey become electron-hole recombination centres. The result is a (sometimes dramatic) reduction in carrier lifetimes. Such an effect is often associated witli tlie presence of transition metal impurities or certain extended defects in tlie material. For example, substitutional Au is used to make fast switches in Si. Many point defects have deep levels in tlie gap, such as vacancies or transition metals. In addition, complexes, precipitates and extended defects are often associated witli recombination centres. The presence of grain boundaries, dislocation tangles and metallic precipitates in poly-Si photovoltaic devices are major factors which reduce tlieir efficiency. 

The defects generated in ion—soHd interactions influence the kinetic processes that occur both inside and outside the cascade volume. At times long after the cascade lifetime (t > 10 s), the remaining vacancy—interstitial pairs can contribute to atomic diffusion processes. This process, commonly called radiation enhanced diffusion (RED), can be described by rate equations and an analytical approach (27). Within the cascade itself, under conditions of high defect densities, local energy depositions exceed 1 eV/atom and local kinetic processes can be described on the basis of ahquid-like diffusion formalism (28,29). 

The failure rate changes over the lifetime of a population of devices. An example of a failure-rate vs product-life curve is shown in Figure 9 where only three basic causes of failure are present. The quaUty-, stress-, and wearout-related failure rates sum to produce the overall failure rate over product life. The initial decreasing failure rate is termed infant mortaUty and is due to the early failure of substandard products. Latent material defects, poor assembly methods, and poor quaUty control can contribute to an initial high failure rate. A short period of in-plant product testing, termed bum-in, is used by manufacturers to eliminate these early failures from the consumer market. 

The equihbtium lever relation, np = can be regarded from a chemical kinetics perspective as the result of a balance between the generation and recombination of electrons and holes (21). In extrinsic semiconductors recombination is assisted by chemical defects, such as transition metals, which introduce new energy levels in the energy gap. The recombination rate in extrinsic semiconductors is limited by the lifetime of minority carriers which, according to the equihbtium lever relation, have much lower concentrations than majority carriers. Thus, for a -type semiconductor where electrons are the minority carrier, the recombination rate is /S n/z. An = n — is the increase of the electron concentration over its value in thermal equihbtium, and... 

Gamma radiation produces free carriers much as does visible light (36). High energy protons and electrons produce defects that reduce minority carrier lifetime according to equation 8 ... 

Electrical Properties. Generally, deposited thin films have an electrical resistivity that is higher than that of the bulk material. This is often the result of the lower density and high surface-to-volume ratio in the film. In semiconductor films, the electron mobiHty and lifetime can be affected by the point defect concentration, which also affects electromigration. These effects are eliminated by depositing the film at low rates, high temperatures, and under very controUed conditions, such as are found in molecular beam epitaxy and vapor-phase epitaxy. 

Band gaps of semiconductors carrier lifetimes shallow impurity or defect detection sample quality and structure... 

Quantum well interface roughness Carrier or doping density Electron temperature Rotational relaxation times Viscosity Relative quantity Molecular weight Polymer conformation Radiative efficiency Surface damage Excited state lifetime Impurity or defect concentration... 

Photoluminescence is a well-established and widely practiced tool for materials analysis. In the context of surface and microanalysis, PL is applied mostly qualitatively or semiquantitatively to exploit the correlation between the structure and composition of a material system and its electronic states and their lifetimes, and to identify the presence and type of trace chemicals, impurities, and defects. 

Standard life is described as the average lifetime that is acceptable to any plant failure analyst or troubleshooter. Therefore, if we arrive at defect limits in machinery within the maintenance program, we have also reached the standard life of all the failure modes in the plant. Do we now ... 

Silicon wafer has been extensively used in the semiconductor industry. CMP of silicon is one of the key technologies to obtain a smooth, defect-free, and high reflecting silicon surfaces in microelectronic device patterning. Silicon surface qualities have a direct effect on physical properties, such as breakdown point, interface state, and minority carrier lifetime, etc. Cook et al. [54] considered the chemical processes involved in the polishing of glass and extended it to the polishing of silicon wafer. They presented the chemical process which occurs by the interaction of the silicon layer and the... 

Ion implantation generates many dangling bonds that form centers for nonradiative recombination. These centers decrease the carrier lifetime and compete effectively with radiative transitions. However, after hydrogenation, since hydrogen ties dangling bonds, the luminescence process becomes more efficient. Furthermore, since the 1.0-eV emission is obtained even before hydrogen is introduced, the new radiative center may be formed due to residual hydrogen in the c-Si that combines with the implantation-induced defects. 

Gold has been used for many years as a minority carrier lifeline controller in Si. As such, it is introduced in a controlled manner, usually by diffusion into transistor structures to decrease the carrier lifetime in the base region in order to increase the switching speed (Ravi, 1981). Conversely, the uncontrolled presence of Au is clearly deleterious to the performance of devices, both because of the increased recombination within the structure and the increase of pipe defects, which can cause shorting of the device. These pipe defects consist of clusters of metallic impurities at dislocations bounding epitaxial stacking faults. 

For the case of muonium, nonresonant spin precession in a magnetic field provides a copious source of information about its crystallographic sites and the associated unpaired electron distribution around them (see Chapter 15). Here, the concentration of muons is always too low for molecule formation, and migration to impurities and implantation defects can be kept small by the short muon lifetime and use of pure material and low temperature. 

Again related to total energies, and particularly relevant to the hydrogen-shallow-defect pairs that we will discuss, are the phenomena of metastability and bistability (Watkins, 1989). A metastable configuration is one in which the total energy is a local minimum but not a global minimum. The lifetime of the metastable state depends, of course, on the barrier that separates it from the stable configuration. 

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