Minority carrier lifetime in GaP grown by liquid phase epitaxy for high temperature applications

Abstract

We have measured the minority carrier lifetime τmin in liquid phase epitaxial GaP material grown for high-temperature device applications, as a function of doping concentration, temperature, and epitaxial layer thickness. In p-type GaP doped with Mg, τmin remains constant with increasing carrier concentration until p≊1018 cm−3, where it decreases rapidly. For nominally undoped n-type material we find that τmin increases by nearly one order of magnitude over the temperature range T = 22–600 °C. The apparent lifetimes in these thin-layer materials increase with layer thickness indicating that surface and interface recombination are important.