DEVICE PARAMETERS

CHARACTERIZATION

WITH THE USE OF EBIC

OKA KURNIAWAN

School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering

A thesis submitted to the Nanyang Technological University

in partial fulﬁllment of the requirement for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

2008

Acknowledgements

The author is indebted to Associate Professor Vincent Ong Keng Sian for his constant support and guidance throughout his candidature as a research student. The author is also very grateful to Dr. Grigore Moldovan and Prof. Colin J. Humphreys from the Department of Material Science and Metallurgy, Cambridge University (UK), for allowing the author to use their EBIC data measurements on the GaN LED. Dr. Grigore Moldovan was also involved in the discussion in developing the technique to determine the edges of the depletion layer of a p-n junction. Next, the author would like to thank Ms Seow-Guee Geok Lian for her help in giving technical supports in IC Design Laboratory II, where the author worked on his project. The author also would like to express his gratitude to NTU for the research grant to do his further study as a PhD student. Lastly, the author wants to thank Ms Maya Kristandyo for her help in checking the manuscript of the Thesis, as well as the author’s family for their continual support and encouragement.

”omne quod spirat, laudet Dominum” (Psalmus 150:5)

Abstract

The performance of bipolar and photodiode devices is determined by the transport properties of the minority carriers, such as the minority carrier diffusion lengths and the surface recombination velocities. The Electron Beam Induced Current (EBIC) technique of the Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) has been widely used to characterize these two parameters. One of the most widely used methods involves a fitting process with the use of a fitting parameter called alpha. The accuracy of extracting the minority carrier diffusion lengths using this method is affected by several parameters, such as the surface recombination velocity and the exact locations of the edges of the depletion layer. Moreover, this method is only applicable when the p-n junction depth is assumed to be either very deep or very shallow. The present work aims to analyse the parameters affecting the accuracy, as well as to develop techniques to characterize diffusion lengths from a p-n junction that has a finite junction depth.

The effect of the surface recombination velocities on the extraction of the diffusion lengths comes from the fitting parameter, termed alpha, used in the method. The present work analysed the factors affecting this alpha parameter and provided the required conditions for accurately determining the value of the surface recombination velocity. On the other hand, a technique to locate the edges of the depletion layer was developed. Thus, more accurate locations of the edges of the depletion layer can be obtained from