Acceptor reactivation kinetics in heavily carbon-doped GaAs epitaxial layers

The reactivation kinetics of the acceptor behavior of carbon in GaAs layers has been studied. The reactivation was achieved by ex situ rapid thermal a nnealing. To follow the carbon reactivation process, a multistage annealing experiment was performed, with changes in the sample carrier concentration monitored at each stage. An analysis of these data indicates that carbon r eactivation follows a first-order kinetics process that can be explained by a model which includes the effects of dopant repassivation by hydrogen ret rapping during hydrogen out-diffusion, and a dependence of the attempt freq uency with the carbon concentration. The reactivation occurs with an activa tion energy of 1.41 eV. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951 (00)01134-7].