Donor-Acceptor impurity band

and Deep level Transistions

Donor- Acceptor and Impurity to Band
transitions
• Intentional and unintentional donor and acceptor levels in semiconductors give
rise to radiative transitions.
• In GaAs typical donor energies are between 4 and 8meV and typical acceptor
energies are 25 and 40 meV.
• In general D-A transition give rise to broad peak in the emission sepctrum.
• Another transition from band to impurity also occur in semiconductors. It is
difficult to distinguish the D-B and A-B. Temperature of the sample and the
conductivity of the sample is very important.
• For indirect impurity related transition a phonon emission process is involved ,
and the emitted photon energy is given by hω= Eg-Ei-Ep
• Where Ei= Ed or Ea.
• Band to band transition varies in the range of several hundreds of
picoseconds to one nanosecond.
• Impurity to Band carrier lifetime is in the order of several
nanoseconds.
• Consider a GaAs sample that has Ed=5meV and Ea= 30meV,
• At 4 K very low temperature D-A is predominant.
• At 20K the donors are ionised and the electrons from these levels are
raised to the conduction band. A shoulder develops to the high
energy side of the D-A peak in the emission spectrum which
corresponds to B-A transitions.
• As the temperature is raised B-A becomes more predominant and D-A
is quenched.
• Selective occupation of donor levels and the conduction band edge
can also be achieved at a fixed low temperature varying the excitation
intensity.
• At low excitation intensity D-A is prominent one. As it is increased B-A
becomes more prominent.
Deep Level Transitions
•Deep levels in forbidden energy gap acts as a carrier
recombination or trapping centers

•Adversely affects the device performance

•Defect in the Lattice give rise to Deep levels in

semiconductors

 Vacancies
Interstitial impurities
Substitutional impurities
Impurity vacancy complexes
 Deep Level Transitions

Excess energy of carriers recombining at these levels is carried

away by single or multiple phonons.
 
Some impurities and defects are radiative in nature
 
Cu (0.18 & 0.41) eV , Mn (0.10 )eV in GaAs
 
Radiative energy is equal to ionization energy of deep levels
 
Radiative efficiency is degraded due to this transitions, and so
called “Killer Centers”
Deep Center as Recombination Centers
Strong electron phonon coupling take many phonons to bridge the gap
between the conduction band and deep center. Hence the capture
probability is low.
Deep centers with large lattice relaxation have strong electron-phonon
coupling and therefore large capture cross-section.
Once an electron is capture on the deep center it will attract a hole via
Coulomb attraction with the energy again dissipated in phonon emission.
Hence deep center with large relaxation form efficient non-radiative
recombination Centers