Self-Oscillating Processes in Silicon, Problems and Prospects of Research and Their Application in Electronics

Abstract

The study of self-oscillating processes in semiconductors and semiconductor structures makes it possible to create a physical mechanism for these unique phenomena and shows the possibilities of creating solid-state generators and sensors of physical quantities with the frequency-amplitude output. From the analysis of the literature data, it was found that the excitation conditions and the parameters of current self-oscillations were studied in more detail only in silicon doped with manganese and zinc atoms, as well as in CdSe, CdS, InGa semiconductor compounds and in some other structures. In other materials, the boundary regions of the existence of the current instabilities depending on external factors were not very precisely determined. This led to the absence of reproducible results and inconsistencies in the correlation between the electrophysical parameters of the material with the parameters of current self-oscillations (amplitude, frequency). In this regard, this article presents a comprehensive study of current self-oscillations in silicon doped with impurity atoms of manganese, zinc, sulfur, and selenium. A physical mechanism of self-oscillations of the current is proposed, which has a good agreement with the experimental results obtained not only in the studies of the authors but also with the experimental results of other researchers.