CHARGE REDISTRIBUTION AMONG DEFECTS IN HEAVILY DAMAGED SILICON

We have studied trapping kinetics of defects during carrier capture in heavily damaged silicon, where damage was induced by MeV heavy ions a t doses near but below the amorphization threshold. Using spectroscopi c junction transient measurements, we provide unambiguous evidence of charge redistribution between defects. These results imply that change s in the occupancy of gap states are responsible for the deepening of emission energies with filling time, as is commonly observed in transi ent experiments in disordered silicon. This is in contrast to its usua l explanation in terms of deepening of energy states due to hierarchic al defect relaxation.