Characterization of a deep-level compensation ratio through picosecond four-wave mixing on a transient reflection grating

Abstract

We demonstrate a novel application of a time-resolved four-wave mixing technique for the determination of a deep-level compensation ratio in a semi-insulating crystal. The approach is based on photoexcitation of carriers from deep impurity levels, formation of a space-charge electric field in deep traps, and monitoring dynamics of photorefractive, free- carrier and absorption gratings by light diffraction. The analysis of anisotropic diffraction features on the reflection grating provided requirements for crystal orientation in order to discriminate contribution of amplitude grating from the photorefractive phase grating, both being related to deep-trap occupation. Contributions of these optical nonlinearities were studied experimentally in (0 0 1)-oriented GaAs wafers by using a transient reflection grating configuration with a very small grating period (150 nm). Comparison of the reflection grating picosecond kinetics and its diffraction efficiency with modeling curves allowed us to ascribe the slow decay component to amplitude grating in recharged deep traps and determine their compensation ratio. The proposed technique allowed the determination of the compensation ratio of a deep EL2 donor, equal to 0.6 ± 0.05 in the given GaAs crystal.