Dynamics of defects in semiconductors

Abstract

Hyperfine interaction techniques involving radioactive probe atoms like the perturbed γγ angular correlation technique (PAC) and the Mossbauer effect have, due to their inherent sensitivity, successfully been applied to the study of defects in semiconductors. By probing the characteristic charge distribution around the probe atom interacting with a defect, they contributed to the microscopic understanding of the nature, structure and stability of complexes formed between radioactive dopant atoms and defects present in elemental and compound semiconductors. Moreover, dynamic effects can be studied by hyperfine interaction probe techniques. In this case, dynamics always means the fluctuation of a charge distribution resulting in a time dependent hyperfine interaction within the time scale defined by the lifetime of the isomeric nuclear state used for the measurement. Such fluctuations can either be caused by structural changes like local rearrangements of a defect complex or by electronic transitions in the semiconductor resulting in a change of the charge state of a defect complex. Examples using PAC to monitor such processes will be discussed for the semiconductor silicon.