Carrier Recombination and Trapping Effects in Transient Photoconductive Decay Measurements

A discussion of recombination and trapping kinetics is presented from the point of view of application to the analysis of transient photoconductive decay measurements in semiconductors. The transient solution is reviewed for the case of recombination in a single level, and the limiting approximations are presented for the case of n-type material. The role of minority carrier trapping in transient measurements is discussed, along with the effect of recombination in the trapping center. It is found that trapping effects can be treated as a special case in the recombination equations. Separation of the recombination and trapping effects in various temperature ranges is discussed.