Determination of surface recombination velocity and bulk lifetime in detector grade silicon and germanium crystals

Abstract

The utility of a noncontact photoconductive decay (PCD) technique is demonstrated in measuring the bulk lifetime, /spl tau//sub B/, and surface recombination velocity, S, in detector grade silicon and germanium crystals. We show that the simple analytical equations which relate the observed effective lifetimes in PCD transients to /spl tau//sub B/ and S have a limited range of applicability. The noncontact PCD technique is used to determine the effect of several surface treatments on the observed effective lifetimes in Si and Ge. A degradation of the effective lifetime in Si is reported as a result of the growth of a thin layer of native oxide at room temperature under atmospheric conditions.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>