Recovery of Electron Radiation Damage inn-Type InSb

Abstract

The production and recovery of electron radiation damage in $n$-type InSb has been studied by means of Hall-coefficient and electrical-conductivity measurements. Irradiations were performed mainly at 80\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}K, since no recovery was observed between 4\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{} and 80\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}K. The damage recovered in five well-defined stages with the recovery nearly complete at 320\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}K. Isochronal and isothermal recovery was monitored in each of the stages, allowing a determination of the activation energies for recovery and a study of the recovery kinetics. None of the recovery kinetics fit any simple models. There is evidence that the two lowest-temperature recovery stages involve the annihilation of close interstitial-vacancy pairs and that interactions of primary defects with impurities do not occur. However, the first-order kinetics expected for close-pair recovery is not explicitly observed. A possible explanation for the observed kinetics, involving the independent annihilation of two types of close-pair configurations in the same stage with an electrostatic interaction between the interstitial and vacancy, is proposed.