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Permanent deactivation of boron–oxygen recombination centres in silicon
Author(s) -
Voronkov Vladimir,
Falster Robert
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
physica status solidi (b)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1521-3951
pISSN - 0370-1972
DOI - 10.1002/pssb.201600082
Subject(s) - recombination , silicon , electron , hydrogen , boron , atomic physics , oxygen , materials science , chemistry , analytical chemistry (journal) , physics , optoelectronics , nuclear physics , organic chemistry , biochemistry , gene
The major B–O recombination centres in p‐type silicon (labelled SRC) are known to be permanently deactivated at elevated temperature in the presence of excess electrons. This process is accelerated by hydrogen but it occurs also in low‐hydrogen material which is the main concern of the present article. A close inspection of the experimental data shows that: (i) the deactivation rate constant R de is proportional to the electron concentration n and thus completely controlled by the electron lifetime τ and (ii) the value of τ at elevated T is insensitive to SRC; this is controlled by BO 2 defects that reconstruct, in the presence of excess electrons, from the initial latent configuration into a recombination‐active one (FRC). This scenario accounts for the reported dependence of R de on temperature, light intensity and the material parameters.