Semiconductors

This chapter first provides an overview of experimental aspects of x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and x-ray emission spectroscopy (XES) most relevant to semiconductor research and some applications of XAS and XES to semiconductor science. XAS plays an important role in elucidating, the real local structure of dopants in semiconductors in fact, an XAS investigation of As dopants in hydrogenated amorphous silicon is one of the first studies to illustrate the advantages of the technique. The chapter then illustrates that these techniques are powerful tools to probe the local environment of dopants and dilute atoms, thin films and nanostructures and to relate the local and macroscopic physical properties. Finally, it presents the evolution from analysis approaches based on the use of empirical standards to the use of ab initio simulations, including those based on density functional theory and the recent emergence of XES as a complementary tool to XAS.