Part1)Determinationoftheminoritycarrierlifetimeusingopencircuitvoltagedecay

Part2)DeterminationofdopingprofileinasemiconductorfromCVcharacteristics

Part(1)Determinationoftheminoritycarrierlifetimeusingopencircuitvoltagedecay:
Backgroundinformation:
Both these experiments use a PN junction. For simplicity we consider a P
+
N junction. We consider the n doped
semiconductorwithashallowdonorconcentrationgivenbyN
d
donors/cm
3
.WefocusontheNregion.Electrons
are the majority carriers and holes are the minority carriers in the N region. The equilibrium minority carrier
concentration is given by p
0
= (n
i
2
)/ N
d
. Since we are dealing with a P
+
N one sided junction, we will ignore the
depletion region in the P
+
region. Fig. 1(a)showsonlytheNregioninthedark.TheNregionconsistsofadepletion
regionofwidthd
0
andaneutralregionofwidthWd
0
whereWisthethicknessoftheNregion.
Iflightofenergy>E
g
isincidentonthesemiconductor,lightisabsorbedandincreasesthecarrierconcentrationof
bothcarriersholesandelectrons.WechoosetheintensityofthelightissuchthattheholeconcentrationintheN
regionunderilluminationisgivenbyp
L
sothatNd

<<p
L
<<p
0
.
Under illumination the N type region spontaneously breaks up into two parts Fig. 1(b). Minority carriers (holes)
generatedwithinadiffusionlength(L)ofthedepletionregion(shownasd
L
infig2)candiffusetothejunctionand
giverisetoacurrentintheexternalcircuit.(Currentgenerationregioninadditiontothecurrentgenerationregion
ofthedepletionregion).CarriersgeneratedintheregionWLd
L
arelostbyrecombination(Recombinationregion).
Underillumination,thediodedevelopsforwardbias.Atagivenforwardbias,carriersarelostduetoextractionand
torecombination.Wecanassumethatthedepletionregion(d
L
)isnegligiblysmallatV
oc
asthecellisunderforward
bias.
AtV
oc
carrierscanbelostonlybyrecombination.Hencethedecayoftheopen
circuit voltage when the light is turned off is a measure of the minority carrier lifetime .The minority carrier
lifetimeishencegivenby,
=(kT/q)({1/(dV
oc
/dt)}.
ThiscanbeeasilyseenfromtheexpressionforV
oc
intermsoftheshortcircuitcurrentI
sc
.
[tryandseethisforyourselfHintV
oc
=(kT/q)ln(I
sc
/I
0
)
I
sc
isproportionaltoP
L
andtherecombinationrateisproportionalto(P
L
p
0
)/)]


Figure 1: N region (a) in dark (b) under illumination

Deviationsfromthesimpletheoryabove:Somepossibilities
Ifthecellisinternallyshunted,thenexternalopencircuitconditionisnottrueopencircuit.(Howwillyou
checkthis?)
Ifthelifetimedependsontheinjectedcarrierdensity,thenitcanchangeduringthe decay.(Howwill you
checkthis?)
Non uniform carrier generation either due to the light source or non uniform material. (How will you
checkthis?)

Enjoytheexperiment.

Part2:
Depthprofilingthesemiconductortogetthedepthdistributionoftheshallowdopantusingcapacitance
voltageprofiling.

Background:
Asbeforeforsimplicity,weconsideraP
+
Nonesidedjunction.ThedepletionisprimarilyintheNlayer.The
XaxisisalongthelengthoftheNdopedsemiconductor.

Figure2:pnjunction.Source:wikipedia

In the depletion region, there are no free carriers (clearly this is not valid at the edge of the depletion
regiontransitionfromdepletiontoneutralregion)
Thereisabuiltinelectricfield(inthedepletionregion).Thedopantdistributiondeterminesthedcelectric
fieldthroughthesolutionofthePoissonequation.Forinstanceifthedopantisuniformallydistributed,the
dcelectricfieldislinearinspaceandthedcvoltageconsequentlyhasaquadraticdependence.(seeFig.2).
Adifferentdopantdistributionwillgiverisetoadifferentdcspatialelectricfieldandvoltagedependence.
Forsimplicity,weassumethatthedopantdistributionvariesonlyalongonedirectionsayXandisconstant
intheYZplane.WedonotknowthedopantdistributionwithdepthintheNtypematerial.Theaimofthis
experiment is to determine the dopant distribution along X. The idea is to use capacitance vs voltage and
thenconvertthisinformationtodopantdensityvsdepth.
ItiseasytoseewhythevoltagecanbeusedtoselectivelyprobeanygivenXinthesample.WhenthePN
junction is reverse biased, the depletion region extends into the N region as the reverse bias voltage is
increased.SoXcanbecontrolledbyadcvoltage.

HowisCapacitancerelatedtothedopantconcentration?

ThecapacitanceCistheacsmallsignalcapacitanceandisgivenby

C=dQ/dV.Itisthechangeinchargeduetoachangeinvoltage.(CisNOTQ/V).Thisisveryimportant.
Tobeginwith,letthedcbiasacrossthediodebezeroV.Thedcelectricfielddependsonthedetailsofthe
dopantdistributionvs.x.However,whenasmallacfieldisappliedacrossthesample,thedepletionregion
does not contribute to dq as there is no mobile charge. The mobile charge exists only at the edge of the
depletion region. The response to the ac field takes place only at the edge of the depletion region
independentofthedetailsofthedopantdistributioninthedepletionregion.Itisaparallelplatecapacitor.
Sothecapacitanceissimplygivenby
C=
0
A/x
d
..1
where is the relative permittivity and
0
the permittivity of vacuum. A is the device area and x
d
the
depletionlayerthickness.
If we assume that dV is small, then the donor concentration is approximately constant for the small
modulationofthedepletionwidth.
dQ=qN
d
(x
d
)x
d
.2
dV=(qx
d
N
d
(x
d
)x
d
)/(
0
)3
C/V=(C/x
d
)(x
d
/V)4
Usingeqns14wecanwrite
N
d
(X
d
)=C
3
(1/q
0
A
2
)(C/V)
1
.5
AmeasurementofCandC/VvsVwilldeterminethedopingprofile.
Eq.5canalsobewrittenas
{N
d
(X
d
)}
1
=1/2(q
0
A
2
)(d/dV(1/C
2
)
IfN
d
isconstant
1/C
2
=2(V
bi
V)/(q
0
A
2
N
d
)......................6

Aplotof1/C
2
vsVisastraightlineforaconstantdopingdensity.
Fromtheslopeonecangetthedopingdensityandthebuiltinvoltagefromtheintercept.
Dopantprofilingusingcapvoltageisaverypowerfultechnique.
Somesourcesoferrors:
The diodes should not be leaky. This becomes an issue as the reverse bias increases. Measuring the dc
currentunderreversebiasprovidesanindependentestimateoftheleakage.
Another way to quantitatively check whether leakage is important is to look at the phase shift of the
currentthroughthecapacitorwithrespecttotheappliedacvoltage.(Thinkaboutthis.)