Improved extraction of the activation energy of the leakage current in silicon p-n junction diodes

An accurate method is proposed for the extraction of the activation energy E-T from the volume generation current density J(gA) in silicon p-n junctio ns. It combines temperature-dependent current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance -voltage measurements on an array of diodes with different geometry, in ord er to separate the peripheral from the volume components. The J(gA) can be found from the volume leakage current by subtraction of the volume diffusio n current J(dA), which is calculated from the forward I-V characteristic. T o derive the correct slope from an Arrhenius plot of the J(gA), several add itional corrections have been applied. One is the temperature dependence of the depletion width, which is derived from the corrected volume capacitanc e. The most important E-T change is shown to come from the temperature depe ndence of the recombination lifetime. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physic s.