Articles you may be interested inEffect of the thermionic emission on the recombination and electron beam induced current contrast at the interface of a metallic precipitate embedded in a semiconductor matrix AIP Advances 3, 122108 (2013); 10.1063/1.4846235 Numerical simulation of cross section electron-beam induced current in thin-film solar-cells for low and high injection conditions Denuded zone and diffusion length investigation by electron beam induced current technique in intrinsically gettered Czochralski siliconA self-consistent calculation of the barrier height and of the effective recombination velocity at the interface between a metallic precipitate and a semiconductor matrix has been performed within the Read-Hall-Shockley framework. The procedure has taken account of the bending of the minority carrier quasi-Fermi level across the precipitate space-charge region and in the quasineutral region assuming the rigid displacement of the bands. The interface energy states are considered to have a monoenergetic distribution in two limiting cases including the half-filled-level model. The recombination has been investigated versus the semiconductor parameters ͑doping concentration, defect concentration.͒ and the temperature. The precipitate size has a dramatic effect on recombination. This is due to the enhancement of the surface charge density on the metallic precipitate which increases as ch ͑R͒ = ϱ ch + A / R ␣ when the size decreases. However, the surface charge density reaches at small size a limiting value controlled by the defect concentration. The enhancement of the surface charge density tends to reach significant barrier height up to precipitate sizes of 150 Å. The continuity equation around the precipitate has been solved in the case of a low-level electron beam injection in order to determine the electron beam induced current contrast at the interface. The contrast has been investigated versus the size for different defect concentrations, incident beam energies, and for the two kinds of defect distribution.

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The barrier height and the recombination velocity at the interface between a metallic precipitate and a semiconductor matrix are investigated with a new self consistent procedure based both on the analysis of the recombination and emission balance rates for electrons and holes and on the determination of the size-dependent electronic structure of the embedded precipitate. In the present work, the precipitate is modeled within the spherical well potential framework. The main result is the dependence of the recombination features on the electronic structure of the metal precipitate unlike the models based only on the Shockley-Read-Hall theory. The behaviors of the surface charge density on the metallic precipitate and the barrier height versus the precipitate size are similar to our previous studies. Unlike previous works, the recombination velocity reaches a constant non-zero value for sizes smaller than a critical size which is dependent on the defect concentration at the interface. The new dependencies of the recombination parameters are illustrated by the calculation of the electron beam induced current (EBIC) contrast at the interface.

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