p-n junction diagnostics to determine surface and bulk generation/recombination properties of silicon substrates

An improved analysis of the p-n junction current-voltage (I-V) and capacita nce-voltage (C-V) characteristics is proposed and applied to diodes fabrica ted in a variety of silicon substrates. It is shown that for state-of-the-a rt processing conditions the diffusion current at room temperature dominate s the volume leakage current. The peripheral component, on the other hand, is governed by the surface generation in the bird's-beak region surrounding the complementary metal oxide semiconductor compatible diodes. Nevertheles s, a small substrate effect is observed, which can only be resolved by the proposed optimized analysis. For epitaxial wafers, the presence of the high ly doped substrate can significantly reduce the volume diffusion current, w hile for internally gettered Czochralski material the presence of a highly defective bulk region under the denuded zone enhances this current. This co mplicates the recombination lifetime extraction from I-V characteristics. ( C) 1999 The Electrochemical Society. S0013-4651(98)07-081-5. All rights res erved.