Minority Carrier Lifetime in p-n Junction Devices

Abstract

A relation between minority carrier lifetime and recovery time has been obtained for p‐n junction rectifiers of arbitrary base width. In the limiting cases of base width large or small compared to a diffusion length the recovery time is found to depend on the lifetime or on the transit across the base region, respectively. In intermediate cases, the recovery time is a function of both the lifetime and the transit time. Recovery time measurements on diffused junction silicon rectifiers as a junction of base width were found to be in satisfactory agreement with the theory.