Carrier lifetime measurement on electroluminescent metal-oxide-silicon tunneling diodes

The temporal response of the electroluminescence at the Si band gap energy from a metal-oxide-silicon (MOS) tunneling diode is used to characterize th e minority carrier lifetime near the Si/SiO2 interface. The temporal respon ses reveal that the Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) recombination lifetimes are 18 and 25.8 mus for the rising and falling edges, respectively, and that the ratio for SRH, radiative, and Auger recombinations is 1:0.196:0.096 at inje ction current density of 39 A/cm(2). The investigation shows that the elect roluminescence of the MOS tunneling diode can be significantly increased by reducing the number of the nonradiative recombination centers. (C) 2001 Am erican Institute of Physics.