Characteristics of room temperature bipolar photoconductance in 150 GHz probe transients obtained from normal and irradiated silicon illuminated by 532 nm laser

Abstract

A negative kink in excess conductivity is observed in p-type non-degenerate (moderate dopant concentration) silicon wafers when excited by a very narrow pulse of 532 nm laser appearing just after the complete positive decay of dark conductivity voltage. Most of the Si samples are pristine, and 3 of them are irradiated with gamma, proton, and chlorine ion beams respectively. These transients were examined using a time-resolved millimeter-wave conductivity apparatus (TRmmWC ) and the radiofrequency (RF) voltage response (after laser cut-off) consistently reveals a positive peak with nominal decay to zero followed by a negative kink. This negative photoconductivity (NPC) kink develops just after the complete decay of the positive photoconductivity (PPC) and lasts typically ~ 36 us. We present some data on general characteristics obtained from a set of normal (pristine doped Si) wafers and the gamma- and ion beam irradiated silicon (comparing with the parent pristine sample responses) for establishing possible new links that might enable estimation of defect parameters introduced in silicon.