Relaxation kinetics of impurity photoconductivity in p-Si:B with various levels of doping and degrees of compensation in high electric fields

Abstract

The relaxation of impurity photoconductivity in p-Si:B crystals subjected to pulsed optical excitation by a narrow-band continuously adjusted source of radiation in the range of “heating” (10–500 V/cm) electric fields is studied. A variation of dependence of the relaxation time on the electric field E at E > 75 V/cm due to the additional relaxation processes with the emission of an optical phonon is observed. The dependence of the rates of carrier relaxation on the intensity and wavelength of the excitation radiation indicates also that there is a long-lived excited state, which plays the role of a metastable trap level upon the relaxation of charge carriers.