Sergio Pizzini

• Retired Professor
• Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca

Polycrystalline silicon (PS) is the material of choice for photovoltaic (PV) applications. PS is the purest synthetic material on the market, though its processing carries high environmental risk. While many current optoelectronic applications require high purity, PV applications do not and alternate processes and materials are being explored for P...

This volume is a collection of papers presented at Symposium K “Group IV Semiconductors Materials Research: Growth, Characterization and Applications to Electronics and Spintronics” at the E‐MRS Spring Meeting 2016 held from May 02–06 in Lille, France. During preparation of our symposium we were facing the sad situation that Prof. Jan Vanhellemont,...

This chapter considers the physico-chemical backgrounds of a number of growth processes, including the semiconductors of Group IV (diamond, Si, Ge) as well as of Group III-V and II-VI compound semiconductors. It focuses on the growth of bulk and layered single crystal semiconductors from the liquid and/or vapour phase and on the correlations betwee...

Extended defects (EDs) may be classified as 1D (line) defects, 2D (surface) defects and 3D (volume) defects. Considering the physico-chemical relevance of interaction processes involving EDs, this chapter briefly deals with the fundamentals of ED physics, while more emphasis is given to the reactivity of EDs towards point defects and impurities. Im...

This chapter discusses the conceptual physico-chemical background of defect/impurities manipulation procedures in semiconductors, limiting, however, most of the attention to silicon, with the perspective to address this approach to the micro- and the nano-scale. Thermal annealing is currently applied in a number of processes involving semiconductor...

This chapter presents the application of thermodynamics and physical chemistry to elemental and compound semiconductors, assuming knowledge of the fundamental laws of thermodynamics and the basic principles of solid state and semiconductor physics. The properties of a phase are determined by its short- and long-range order and by its macroscopic an...

This volume is a collection of papers presented at Symposium X “Materials Research for Group IV Semiconductors: Growth, Characterization, and Technological Developments” at the E‐MRS Spring Meeting 2014 held from May 26–30 in Lille, France. Different from the recent past, the major challenges for fundamental research and technological development i...

Since the end of our 2010 symposium a significant evolution of the optoelectronic and photovoltaic market took place, leaving, however, silicon and silicon–germanium alloys to remain the materials of choice for a number of mature and advanced applications. The production capacity of Siemens-type polycrystalline silicon plants, which amounted at 233...

IntroductionGas-Phase ProcessesProduction of MG and UMG Silicon and Further Refining Up to Solar Grade by Chemical and Physical ProcessesFluoride ProcessesSilicon Production/Refining with High-Temperature Plasmochemical ProcessesElectrochemical Processes: Production of Silicon Without Carbon as ReductantConclusions AcknowledgementsReferences

Today, the silicon feedstock for photovoltaic cells comes from processes which were originally developed for the microelectronic industry. It covers almost 90% of the photovoltaic market, with mass production volume at least one order of magnitude larger than those devoted to microelectronics. However, it is hard to imagine that this kind of feedst...

Advanced silicon materials research is crucial to meet the requirements of future microelectronics, nano‐electronics, photovoltaics, and power electronics. Fundamental research as well as technological problems associated with point defects and extended defects in bulk silicon and silicon devices, ranging from microelectronic, photovoltaic and powe...

The conductivity of single grain boundaries of electronic grade, Bridgman grown polycrystalline silicon samples was measured using the dc polarization technique with the aim of detecting any influence on the carrier transport regime resulting from the segregation of oxygen and carbon, which, by themselves, should behave as electrically inactive imp...

The chemistry of the interactions between point defects and impurities is discussed by considering first the general thermodynamic and kinetic aspects of these reactions, deserving major attention to the identity of of the stable chemical species eventually formed and to the boundary conditions for diffusion controlled and reaction controlled inter...

It is well known that the sharp, room temperature luminescence emission at 1.54 μm from dislocated silicon has set off a great interest for this material in view of its applications in the third window of optical telecommunications. For this reason the dislocation related luminescence in silicon addressed recently a number of investigation aimed at...

It is well known that silicon in its various structural configurations (single crystal, multicrystalline, amorphous, micro-nanocrystalline) supplies almost 90% of the substrates used in the photovoltaic industry. It is also known, since years, that the photovoltaic (PV) industry shows a marked growth trend, which demanded and demands a continuous,...

ChemInform is a weekly Abstracting Service, delivering concise information at a glance that was extracted from about 100 leading journals. To access a ChemInform Abstract of an article which was published elsewhere, please select a “Full Text” option. The original article is trackable via the “References” option.

Low-energy plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition (LEPECVD) is a new technique for growth of hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si:H) at high growth rate. For all existing growing techniques, a silane dilution threshold exists below which the material’s electronic and optical properties are crystalline-like and above which they are amorp...

A combined theoretical and experimental analysis of the crystalline phase fraction in nanocrystalline films grown by low-energy plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition is presented. The effect of the key parameters, such as temperature, silane flux, and hydrogen dilution ratio, is analyzed. An atomic-scale Monte Carlo model is developed, where th...

The availability of low-cost alternatives to electronic grade silicon has been and still is the condition for the extensive use of photovoltaics as an efficient sun harvesting system. The first step towards this objective was positively carried out in the 1980s and resulted in the reduction in cost and energy of the growth process using as feedstoc...

We report the effect of laser annealing on the structural and electronic properties of nc-Si/a-Si:H samples grown close to the amorphous to nanocrystalline transition. The nc-Si/a-Si:H thin films were produced by low-energy plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition through a gas discharge containing SiH4. The samples were subjected to different las...

A joint theoretical and experimental analysis of the crystalline fraction in nanocrystalline films grown by low-energy plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition is presented. The effect of key growth parameters such as temperature, silane flux, and hydrogen dilution ratio is analyzed and modeled at the atomic scale, introducing an environment-depen...

The knowledge and control of the structural details (texture, crystallite environment and size) of nanocrystalline silicon films is a prerequisite for their proper application in various technological fields. To this purpose, nanocrystalline silicon films grown by low energy plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (LEPECVD) on different kinds of...

Hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon for photovoltaic applications has been investigated by using scanning force microscopy. Morphological properties as well as electrical properties have been investigated with high spatial resolution by scanning force microscopy analyses. Transmission electron microscopy studies have been also carried out for stru...

Nanocrystalline silicon is considered one of the most promising materials for thin-film solar cells. For such an application, one of the critical issues yet unsolved is to obtain a good structural uniformity along the film growth direction to yield high fill factors and open-circuit voltages. In this article, Raman spectroscopy was used to obtain c...

Structural analysis of nanocrystalline silicon layers deposited on oxidized and non-oxidized silicon substrates and on glass substrates by low-energy plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition was carried out by means of transmission electron microscopy. Low magnification and high resolution observations of specimens performed in plan-view and cros...

Hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si:H) is a very promising material for photovoltaic applications. Notwithstanding its wide application as instrinsic layer in solar cells, many issues regarding its electronic and optical properties are not completely understood. The influence of crystal defects and impurities on the physical properties of n...

In this work, we investigate the effect of the average size and density of Pt clusters on silicon on the photoelectrochemical production of hydrogen. The metallization of Si is performed via electroless deposition from aqueous HF solutions and from water-in-oil microemulsions. The first method enables control of the average diameter and density of...

The knowledge and control of the structural and morphological properties of nanocrystalline silicon is a fundamental requisite for its proper application in photovoltaics. To this purpose, nanocrystalline silicon films grown by Low Energy Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapour Deposition (LEPECVD) technique on different kinds of substrates were submitted...

Presently, there is a high interest in silicon-based optical devices that would render possible the development of fully silicon-based optoelectronics. Being an indirect-gap semiconductor, silicon is poorly efficient as a light emitter since radiative emission is limited by carrier recombination at non-radiative centers. One of the possible approac...

The electronic properties of copper-containing zinc phosphate glasses are investigated in the range of low copper concentrations as well as for variable ZnO/P2O5 ratios, in order to verify whether current polaronic theories of charge transport in disordered systems apply to glasses containing transition metal (TM) ions. Special emphasis is given in...

Nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si) already attracted a considerable attention as a promising material for photovoltaic applications, while its full opto-electronic potentiality is still under investigation, due to the relatively poor knowledge of the correlations between growth conditions, microstructure and physical properties. This paper aims at the...

The increase of the average lifetime in silicon multicrystalline wafers at the end of the cell fabrication process shows that, like in p-type materials, also in n-type materials the average quality can be improved by suitable gettering and passivation treatments. However, it was already reported that different parts of p-doped ingots react in diffe...

An increase of about 1% of the delivered power by a mono-crystalline commercial silicon solar cell has been obtained by coating the cell with an active poly-vinylacetate film doped with a light harvesting phenanthroline–Eu3+ complex. The dopant absorbs the UV component of the solar spectrum, where the silicon-based cells are almost blind, and emits...

The radiative recombination processes in dislocated float zone silicon samples deformed under gigapascal stresses were studied by photoluminescence �PL� spectroscopy. The observed shuffle dislocations present a reconstructed core and their generation is accompanied by the introduction of point defects and point defect clusters, whose signature is e...

Defect monitoring and engineering techniques were applied to multicrystalline silicon grown from electronic grade silicon scraps and strained silicon–germanium alloys to test their suitability for low-cost photovoltaics and high-speed electronics, respectively. The combination of lifetime, photoluminescence and electron beam induced current (EBIC)...

The effects of low-temperature annealing in 8.2 MeV electron-irradiated 4H-SiC Schottky diodes were investigated. Deep-level transient spectroscopy and minority-carrier diffusion length �Ld� measurements were carried out on not-irradiated samples and on irradiated samples before and after thermal treatments up to T=450 °C. We found that several dee...

Photovoltaics is a promising but challenging opportunity for the environmentally clean production of electric energy, as the cost of the produced energy is still too high to compete with conventional thermal and nuclear sources, in spite of the scientific and technological progress occurred in this field after the first oil crisis of 1973. Among th...

This work deals with the properties of nanocrystalline silicon films, which have been grown using a Low Energy Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (LEPECVD) process. This process permits to increase the intensity of the plasma discharge in the growth region and thus to achieve high growth rates while avoiding ion-induced surface damage of the...

Theory, models, and experimental phenomena provide evidence of the existence of shallow bands in silicon induced by the dislocation strain field. Nevertheless, only deep bands, likely associated with contamination at dislocations, have been detected up to now by junction spectroscopy. Here we present the first experimental result by junction spectr...

Three electric-dipole spin-resonance signals, labeled TU7, TU8, and TU9, were detected after subjecting oxygen-rich silicon samples to two-step annealing procedures at 450 and 650 ° C for prolonged times. The formation and structural evolution of large interstitial agglomerates, known as rodlike defects, occur in oxygen-rich silicon material during...

This work deals with the characterization of nanocrystalline (nc) silicon films, grown using the plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) process based on a low-voltage–high-current arc discharge plasma named LEPECVD (low-energy PECVD).The structural, electrical and chemical properties of the LEPECVD grown films have been studied as a fun...

High performance SiC detectors for ionising radiation have been designed, manufactured and tested. Schottky junctions on low-doped epitaxial 4H-SiC with leakage current densities of few pA/cm2 at room temperature has been realised at this purpose. The epitaxial layer has been characterised at different dose of radiations in order to investigate the...

Point and extended defects introduced in p-type Cz Si by oxygen precipitation and plastic deformation have been investigated with electrical and optical methods. Different materials (oxygen precipitated and/or deformed Cz Si and Fz Si) were examined in order to separate the role of oxygen precipitation, plastic deformation, and metallic contaminati...

The atomic structure of large agglomerates of interstitials in silicon crystals, i.e. rod-like defects (RLD), was extensively investigated previously using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) methods. Much less is known about electronic properties of these defects. The electric-dipole spin resonance (EDSR) signals and photoluminescence (PL) spec...

This contribution reports the study, by junction spectroscopies, of electronic states induced by thermal and deformation treatments in p-type Si. In order to understand the role that oxygen precipitation, metallic contamination and plastic deformation play on the defect states, several sets of Cz (Czochalski) and Fz (Float-zone) Si samples and diff...

This paper is addressed to the implementation of previous results dealing with electron irradiation of Au/4H-SiC Schottky diodes in view of their application as X-ray detectors. To this purpose, we have carried out further experiments concerning the minority carrier diffusion length (L d) recovery after thermal treatment at low temperature, and we...

The nucleation process of oxygen precipitates in silicon at 650°C was investigated using photoluminescence (PL) measurements, which are demonstrated to provide a highly sensitive tool for the characterization of precipitates differing in structure and shape. The results of this study were first analyzed from a thermodynamic and kinetic point of vie...

We investigate optical properties of dislocations in nitrogen-doped and nitrogen-free Czochralski silicon. The dislocations are formed during crystal growth, but not formed during deformation. The results show that in nitrogen-doped samples, a broad band replaced the D1 band of dislocation, regardless of dislocation density. The replacement of D1 b...

The optical property of dislocations in Czochralski (CZ) silicon induced during crystal growth is investigated with low temperature photoluminescence. It is found that the dislocations in nitrogen-free CZ silicon are present with typical D1-D4 bands of dislocation when the dislocation density attained to 107 cm-2. However, when the dislocation dens...

FZ silicon samples were multi-implanted with He ions at energies ranging from 0.8 MeV to 1.9 MeV. The dose was 5$\times$10$^{16}$ He cm$^{-2}$ for all high energies but 0.8 MeV (3$\times$10$^{16}$ He cm$^{-2}$). After implantation, the wafers were submitted to different annealing processes in an Argon atmosphere (A samples: 900 °C and 700 °C for 2...

This paper is addressed to the discussion of the effect of the dislocation structure and the impurity contamination on the photoluminescence of Czochralski (Cz) silicon in the range of the D1 emission at 0.8 eV. Two types of dislocation systems were considered. One consists of intersecting hexagonal half loops of screw and 60° segments. The other o...

This paper is aimed to improve previous results dealing with irradiation experiments of epitaxial 4H-SiC Schottky diodes in view of their application as X ray detectors. To this purpose, we have carried out a thorough comparison of results concerning the degradation of minority carriers diffusion length (L d) induced by irradiation with 8.2 MeV ele...

In this work, we report and discuss the results of minority carriers diffusion length measurements carried out in order to quantify the radiation damage induced by electron irradiation of X-rays detectors based on a metal–silicon carbide junction. The devices examined consisted of 4H-SiC n-type epitaxial layers on 4H-SiC n+-type substrate wafers, o...

The analysis of the photoluminescence (PL) spectra of a number of silicon samples plastically deformed or simply thermally annealed was used to understand the role of oxygen and oxygen precipitates on the PL emissions in the 0.8-1.0 eV range. The results of this analysis show that it is possible to discriminate between emissions due to oxygen-assoc...

The effect of single-step annealing at 450, 650, and 1000 °C under gigapascal hydrostatic pressures on oxygen segregation from Czochralski silicon samples was investigated. It was shown that the effect of applied pressure on the oxygen segregation processes begins to be detectable at 650 °C and significant at 1000 °C. Not only was the effect of the...

We report results of photoluminescence (PL) and Light Beam Induced Current (LBIC) analysis of extended defects in 6H-SiC. The spectroscopical results have been correlated with optical and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) analysis of samples before and after selective etching. The PL spectra performed by optical excitation above the band gap in the 10-...

It is well known that, as device geometries continue to shrink, contaminants such as micro particles as well as metallic and organic contaminants have an ever-increasing impact on device yields. Therefore their detection and identification are of great importance for the microelectronics industry. In this work, the possibility to detect surface con...

The influence of temperature on the parameters of the band-to-band emission spectrum of a light-emitting diode based on single-crystal silicon was investigated; the unprecedentedly high stability against variations in temperature was observed for both the electroluminescence intensity at the peak of the spectral distribution (I ELm) and the wavelen...

The effect of thermal annealing of nitrogen-doped Czochralski-grown silicon in the range 450–650 °C was investigated by photoluminescence (PL), infrared spectroscopy and resistivity measurements. By studying the PL emission in the 0.7–1.1 eV range it was shown that the free exciton luminescence is depressed by the presence of nitrogen, possibly rel...

The effect of single-step annealing under GPa hydrostatic pressures on the photoluminescence of Cz silicon samples has been investigated at 450, 650 and 1000°C. It has been demonstrated that the effect of applied pressure begins to be detectable at 650°C and significant at 1000°C, where not only the effect of the applied pressure but also that of t...

This work deals with the structural properties of nanocrystalline (nc) silicon films for solar cell applications, grown using a new PECVD process based on an arc discharge plasma characterized by low ion energies, called LEPECVD (Low energy PECVD). This process permits to increase the intensity of the plasma discharge in the growth region and thus...

The transformation of structural defects and photoluminescence (PL) spectra of n- and p-type Cz-Si after implantation with erbium ions at 1 MeV energy to doses of 1 × 1013 and 1 × 1014 cm−2 followed by annealing at 620–1100°C for 0.25–3.0 h in chlorine-containing atmosphere or oxygen have been studied by transmission electron microscopy, optical mi...

This paper reports the results of a study of the effect of nitrogen on the optical properties of dislocations in nitrogen-doped Czochralski and nitrogen-doped float zone silicon samples where the nitrogen doping was carried out by adding Si3N4 in the molten silicon charge or by nitrogen gas dissolution. Dislocations were introduced by plastic defor...

The electronic properties of the recombination centres responsible for radiative and non-radiative recombination processes in silicon are studied by injection-level-dependent diffusion length measurements. Measurements were performed, using a spectral response method, on Czochralski silicon samples heat treated at 470°C for different times in order...

The relation between the intensity of band-to-band photoluminescence in single-crystal silicon and the surface state density at the interface between silicon and silicon dioxide in Si-SiO2 structures fabricated by the technology used to manufacture charge-coupled devices was studied. The surface state density was measured by subjecting the Si-SiO2...

Photoluminescence (PL) and deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) measurements were used to study the origin of optical emissions in the 0.8-1.0 eV region of selected oxygen precipitated and dislocated silicon samples. It was shown that the D1 band, present in both types of samples, is the convolution of different sub-bands, narrowly spaced betwe...

Structural defects and optical features of p-type CzSi after implantation of erbium ions with 1 MeV energy and 1×1014 cm−2 dose followed by annealing at (620–1100 °C) for 0.5–1.0 h in chlorine-containing atmosphere (CCA) or argon have been studied by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), optical microscopy in combination with selective chemical...

The photovoltaic industry asks for fast, non-destructive techniques for in-line characterization tools in solar cells production. We shall show in this paper that the use of the light beam induced current technique (LBIC) is capable to get in a few seconds time photocurrent maps of large area solar cells and to correlate these data with the cell ef...

There is a recent, renewed attention on the possible development of optical emitters compatible with silicon microelectronic technology and it has been recently shown that light emitting diodes could be manufactured on dislocated silicon, where dislocations were generated by plastic deformation or ion implantation. Among other potential sources of...

The interaction of defects and impurities with extended defects remains, after more than forty years of extended experimental and theorethical investigations, a hot subject of discussion, as many aspects of it remain still at least partially uncovered. Aim of this Chapter is to look to the argument with a particular emphasis on the physico-chemical...

In order to get insight in the origin of optical emissions of silicon in the 0,8 eV region, Photoluminescence (PL) and Deep Level Transient Spectroscopy (DLTS) measurements on selected oxygen precipitated and dislocated samples were carried out. It was shown from PL measurements that the D1 band in dislocated and oxygen precipitated samples is the...

The results of a systematic photo and cathodo-luminescence analysis of a large matrix of CZ silicon samples on which different nucleation and oxide precipitation anneals have been carried out, are reported and correlated with the results of infrared and TEM analysis on the same sets of samples. The results obtained show that the precipitates are co...

There is a wide set of literature reports that suggest that over-coordinated oxygen or self-interstitials are, directly or indirectly, the chemical bridge between thermal donors, oxygen precipitates and dislocations, capable of supporting a common origin of their emission features in the 0.7-0.9 eV range. Finding the experimental proof of these sug...

Dedicated to Professor Dr. Wolfgang Schro È ter on the occasion of his 65th anniversary It is well known that the dislocation luminescence (DL) in silicon consists of four main bands, conventionally labelled D1 to D4, where E 1 = 0.807 eV, E 2 = 0.874 eV, E 3 = 0.95 eV and E 4 = 0.99 eV, of which the D1 is considered of interest for optoelectronic...

Charge collection analyses have been carried out on Er-doped silicon to investigate the excitation and de-excitation mechanisms of the Er3+ ion related to the λ = 1.54 μm luminescence. Carrier recombination and trapping at the defective states induced in the material by the presence of Er play a significant role in the excitation of the Er3+ ion an...

A light-beam induced current (LBIC) in a planar configuration has been coupled to multiple-internal-reflection (MIR) spectroscopy in order to correlate evidence of the surface recombination velocity changes to contaminants on the silicon surface. We verified preliminarily the chemical evolution of HF-treated silicon surfaces from the hydrophobic to...

The development of new integrated circuits (IC) technologies demands a deeper knowledge of the effects of wet wafer cleaning treatments on microchemical, structural and physical surface properties for better device engineering procedures. In this paper, we report and discuss the results of measurements dealing with the effect of conventional hydroc...

In this paper, the effects of thin epi layer deposition treatment on formation, growth or dissolution of traditionally known defects like oxygen precipitates or OISF and recently investigated defects, related to vacancy or self-interstitial (COPs, D-defects, I-defects) aggregates, are presented and discussed. Several characterization techniques, in...

The electrical activity of the defective states in Er-doped Si has been investigated. The epitaxial layer of Si:Er was grown with the liquid-phase epitaxy method and showed optical emission at 1.54 mum. The presence and activity of dislocations have been evidenced by the appearance of lines D1 and D2 in photoluminescence spectra and it has been con...

The electrical activity of the defective states in Er-doped Si has been investigated. The epitaxial layer of Si:Er was grown with the liquid-phase epitaxy method and showed optical emission at 1.54μm. The presence and activity of dislocations have been evidenced by the appearance of lines D1 and D2 in photoluminescence spectra and it has been confi...

It is well-known that the sharp luminescence emission at 1.54 μm from erbium-doped silicon has set off a great interest for this material in view of its applications in the third window of optical telecommunications. It is also known that the erbium luminescence is very poor in the absence of impurities like oxygen, carbon and nitrogen, but in spit...

The effect of the pre-annealing time at 470 °C on the oxygen segregation and new thermal donors (NTD) formation at temperatures ranging from 600 to 800 °C was investigated. It was shown that pre-annealing at 470 °C plays a key role both in the oxygen segregation and in the NTD formation. The energy spectra associated with the presence of NTD and ox...

External and internal gettering procedures in silicon microelectronics are based on processes which induce segregation of impurities at extended defects (internal or external surfaces, grain boundaries, dislocations, stacking faults). Earlier theoretical and experimental studies on this topic helped in collecting the basic, macroscopic elements of...

A careful analysis of the features of the spectroscopic properties of Er-doped and undoped epitaxial silicon films grown by liquid-phase epitaxy at 950 C in silicon-saturated indium melts shows that threading dislocations work as effective gettering sites for erbium and oxygen. The last impurity is incorporated in the epitaxial film by back diffusi...

We report in this paper the results of a systematic investigation on the segregation of oxygen in Czochralsky silicon wafers submitted to a two-step annealing sequence, the first of which is carried out at 470°C and the second at temperatures ranging from 600 to 800°C. The oxygen content evolution and the segregation of oxide phases was followed us...

The energy spectrum of the levels associated with oxygen precipitates in Si formed under two step low temperature annealing (470 °C for 100 h as a nucleation step and 750-850 °C for 24 h for the precipitate growth) has been studied by the DLTS and ODLTS methods. It has been shown that at least one shallow level in the upper half of the band gap and...

In this paper we report a systematic investigation the nature and energy levels of traps generated during the segregation in oxygen of silicon wafers submitted to a two-step annealing sequence, the first of which is carried out at 470°C and the second at temperatures ranging from 600 to 800°C. The investigation was carried out by using DLTS (deep l...

We have carried out deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS), optical DLTS, and capacitance–voltage measurements on liquid phase epitaxy-grown Er-doped Si to characterize the deep levels present in the material and to identify those related to dislocations and involved in the luminescence activity. The optical properties of the material have been s...

We have studied by electrical and optical methods the properties of the defects to possibly identify which ones affect the luminescence of the material. We have characterized Er-doped Si samples grown by the Liquid Phase Epitaxy (LPE) method, a relatively simple and inexpensive technique, by means of photoluminescence (PL), cathodoluminescence, EXA...

Minority and majority carrier properties of as grown and rapid thermally annealed 8″ Si wafers were investigated. Surface and bulk recombination mechanisms were monitored by measuring surface recombination velocity and minority carrier diffusion length, while the defective state of the material was analyzed by measuring extended defect electrical a...

We have studied the deep levels present in Er-doped silicon epilayers grown by the liquid-phase epitaxy method by deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) and optical DLTS, in order to identify the majority and minority carrier traps and a possible correlation between these traps and the observed photoluminescence (PL) and cathodoluminescence (CL)...