Coulomb-enhanced Auger recombination in crystalline silicon at intermediate and high-injection densities

Band-to-band Auger recombination in crystalline silicon is investigated by means of quasi-steady-state photoconductance measurements under intermediat e- and high-injection conditions. The measurements reveal that the correlat ion of the charge carriers via Coulombic interaction has to be taken into a ccount to accurately model the observed injection level and doping concentr ation dependence of the Auger recombination lifetime. A semi-empirical Coul omb-enhanced Auger recombination model is applied in order to simulate the experimental results theoretically. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(00)02415-4].