EFFECTIVE GENERATION-RECOMBINATION PARAMETERS IN HIGH-ENERGY PROTON-IRRADIATED SILICON DIODES

The degradation of the generation and the recombination lifetime of si licon junction diodes by 10 MeV proton irradiation is compared with th e introduction of the radiation-induced deep levels. It is shown that for the fluence range studied, both the reverse current and the recipr ocal lifetime increase linearly with 10 MeV H+ fluence. From this stud y it follows that n-type Si is more prone to high-energy proton irradi ation damage than p-type material. From the electrical diode character istics, it is derived that the dominant generation center in both n- a nd p-type Float-Zone Si is approximately 0.12 eV from the midgap posit ion. This strongly suggests that in both types of material, the divaca ncy level at E(c)-0.42 eV is the dominant generation center. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.