Determination of the density of surface states at the semiconductor-insulator interface in a metal-insulator-semiconductor structure

Abstract

The temporal dependence of thermal generation of electrons from occupied surface states at the semiconductor-insulator interface in a metal-insulator-semiconductor structure is studied. It is established that, at low temperatures, the derivative of the probability of depopulation of occupied surface states with respect to energy is represented by the Dirac δ function. It is shown that the density of states of a finite number of discrete energy levels under high-temperature measurements manifests itself as a continuous spectrum, whereas this spectrum appears discrete at low temperatures. A method for processing the continuous spectrum of the density of surface states is suggested that method makes it possible to determine the discrete energy spectrum. The obtained results may be conducive to an increase in resolution of the method of non-stationary spectroscopy of surface states.