Abstract
Since the advances of femtosecond laser technology during the last decade, optical second harmonic generation (SHG) has proven itself a powerful tool to investigate the electronic and structural properties of semiconductor materials. Its advantage lies in the fact that it is a contact-less, non-intrusive method that can be used in situ. It is sensitive to systems with broken symmetry, in particular interfaces and surfaces. The Si/SiO2 system is technologically important since it forms a component of most modern electronic equipment. Furthermore, it has been shown that it is possible to induce an electric field across this interface by means of laser irradiation as a result of defect formation and defect population. This electric field can be measured since it determines the SHG signal. The anisotropy of the SHG signal from the Si/SiO2 interface was measured and showed four-fold symmetry, illustrating that the SHG technique was able to characterise the electrical properties of the interface below the 5 nm thick oxide layer. : second harmonic generation, Si/SiO2, charge carrier dynamics, defect detection, charge trapping, interfacial electric fields
Highlights
This article highlights the applicability of optical second harmonic generation (SHG) to investigate electronic defects that exist on the nanometre scale in Si/SiO2
Work done in our laboratory has shown that it is possible to probe and create electronic defects in the Si/SiO2 interface
These defects can be populated by near infrared femtosecond radiation and the effect of the defect population can be measured by optical second harmonic generation
Summary
Since the advances of femtosecond laser technology during the last decade, optical second harmonic generation (SHG) has proven itself a powerful tool to investigate the electronic and structural properties of semiconductor materials. It has been shown that it is possible to induce an electric field across this interface by means of laser irradiation as a result of defect formation and defect population. This electric field can be measured since it determines the SHG signal. The anisotropy of the SHG signal from the Si/SiO2 interface was measured and showed four-fold symmetry, illustrating that the SHG technique was able to characterise the electrical properties of the interface below the 5 nm thick oxide layer. : second harmonic generation, Si/SiO2, charge carrier dynamics, defect detection, charge trapping, interfacial electric fields
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