Hydrogen in semiconductors

Abstract

Hydrogen in crystalline semiconductors has become a recent curiosity because of its high diffusivity and strong chemical activity in such materials. In contrast to the proton motion in ionic materials which gives rise to an enhanced conductivity, hydrogen in electronic materials interact with structural disorders and chemical impurities to control the electronic flow. Deep gap states in crystalline semiconductors due to various disorders such as surface/interface, grain boundaries, dislocations, irradiation and implantation damage etc. have been removed due to hydrogen bondings.Hydrogen incorporation is done by plasma and direct ion beam hydrogenation methods, implantation technique and by a novel technique of damage free introduction. The most studied materials are silicon and gallium arsenide.I - V,C - V, DLTS and IR studies have been carried out on hydrogenated semiconductors to characterize the electronic flow, gap states and the nature of chemical bonds. Improvement in ideality factors of diodes, reduction in free carrier concentration, removal or reduction of deep states and appearance of new bondings such as Si-H, P-H, B-H etc. have been observed from various techniques.The present paper reviews the various features of hydrogenation studies in crystalline silicon and gallium arsenide and highlights our results of hydrogenation studies on Pd/semiconductor devices.