Dissociation energies of shallow-acceptor-hydrogen pairs in silicon

Abstract

The thermal dissociation of electrically neutral shallow-acceptor-hydrogen complexes ($A\mathrm{H}$ with $A=\mathrm{B},\mathrm{A}\mathrm{l},\mathrm{G}\mathrm{a},\mathrm{a}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{d}\mathrm{I}\mathrm{n}$) follows first-order kinetics over the entire annealing process, provided the isothermal anneals are performed with a reverse bias applied to the Schottky diode. The firstorder kinetics permit a precise determination of the dissociation frequency ${\nu }_A$ of the acceptorhydrogen pairs. The temperature-dependent values of ${\nu }_A$ satisfy the relation ${\nu }_A={\nu }_{0A}\exp (-\frac{E_A}{\mathrm{kT}})$, with ${\nu }_{0\mathrm{B}}=2.8\mathrm{}\times {10}^{14}$ ${\mathrm{s}}^{-1\mathrm{}}$, ${\nu }_{0\mathrm{Al}}=3.1\mathrm{}\times {10}^{13}$ ${\mathrm{s}}^{-1\mathrm{}}$, ${\nu }_{0\mathrm{Ga}}=6.9\mathrm{}\times {10}^{13}$ ${\mathrm{s}}^{-1\mathrm{}}$, and ${\nu }_{0\mathrm{In}}=8.4\mathrm{}\times {10}^{13}$ ${\mathrm{s}}^{-1\mathrm{}}$. The dissociation energies $E_A$ depend only weakly on the acceptors: $E_{\mathrm{B}}=(1.28\mathrm{}\pm 0.03)$ eV, $E_{\mathrm{Al}}=(1.44\mathrm{}\pm 0.02)$ eV, $E_{\mathrm{Ga}}=(1.40\mathrm{}\pm 0.03)$ eV, and $E_{\mathrm{In}}=(1.42\mathrm{}\pm 0.05)$ eV.