Carrier Lifetime Determination through Stress-Associated Cyclotron Resonance

Abstract

A new method of measuring carrier lifetime in silicon and germanium at liquid helium temperatures is introduced. It makes use of cyclotron resonance combined with application of uniaxial stress, and is intended to supplement another cyclotron resonance technique reported earlier, which measures lifetime broadening of a resonance signal. Though the knowledge of intervalley scattering rate is required, the present method has the merit of being free from the electrode-contact problem and is particularly useful for determining the lifetime of 10-8–10-9 sec, which is too short for a direct photodecay measurement and yet too long for the other cyclotron resonance method. An appropriate example of date is given for a doubly doped p-type germanium.