The role of underbarrier transitions in processes of annihilation of excess charge carriers in II–VI semiconductors

Abstract

The loss kinetics of charge carriers generated by the emission pulses of nitrogen laser in II–VI semiconductor compounds, namely, n- and p-CdTe and CdS, is studied by the method of microwave photoconductivity. The decays of photoresponse after switching off the light consisted of fast (manifesting itself at times 50 ns) components. The shape of decay of a slow component was virtually independent of temperature, and at long times, the decay law corresponded to the linear dependence of the photoresponse on the logarithm of time. The assumption follows from the results that the slow component of the photoresponse decay reflects the loss process of charges captured in the traps due to the tunnel recombination.