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Minority Carrier Induced Debonding of Hydrogen from Shallow Donors in Silicon*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2011

Carleton H. Seager
Affiliation:
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM 87185
Robert A. Anderson
Affiliation:
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM 87185
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Abstract

We have investigated the dissociation of donor-hydrogen pairs in Schottky barrier capacitors fabricated from phosphorus and arsenic doped silicon, at temperatures in the range 24 to 110°C. At zero bias the release of donor trapped hydrogen does not follow first order kinetics. Introduction of minority carriers by illumination or forward bias injection enhances the rate of hydrogen release and redistribution, but otherwise leaves the functional form relatively unchanged. Numerical modeling shows that the debonding rate must be proportional to the local hole density. If the dissociation process is carried out in reverse diode bias, some of the released hydrogen rebonds deeper in the silicon, outside the depletion region. In addition, a portion of the charge density in the depleted region is seen to be metastable and disappears after several hours at room temperature. This observation suggests the existence of a positive charge state of the donor-hydrogen pair which may be the precursor to dissociation. While several groups have recently pointed out that reverse-bias annealing data suggest the existence of a negative charge state of interstitial hydrogen, our observation of an electronically controlled debonding rate. casts considerable doubt on the firmness of that conclusion.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1991

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Footnotes

*

This work was performed at Sandia National Laboratories, supported by the U. S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC04–76DP00789.

References

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