An alternative form of Hooge's relation for 1/f noise in semiconductor materials

Abstract

Single quantum dots and other materials exhibit irregular switching between on and off states; these on-off states follow power-law statistics giving rise to 1/f noise. We transfer this phenomenon (also referred to as onoff intermittency) to the generation and recombination (= g-r) process in semiconductor materials. In addition to g-r noise we obtain 1/f noise that can be provided in the form of Hooge's relation. The predicted Hooge coefficient is αH = αX αim whereby αX depends on the parameters of the g-r noise and αim on the parameters of the intermittency. Due to the power-law distribution of the on-times, the coefficient αim shows a smooth dependence on time t. We also suggest an alternative form of Hooge's 1/f noise formula relating the 1/f noise to the number of centers (such as donor or trap atoms) rather than to the number of charge carriers as defined by Hooge.

The transition from generation–recombination noise in bulk semiconductors to discrete switching in small-area semiconductors

“…They explain 1/f noise in the bulk by a superposition of individual trapping events with a wide distribution of time constants. We do not agree with this interpretation: 1/f noise in a bulk semiconductor can also be explained by an intermittent g-r process [24,25], where the generation process is gated by on-off states. The intermittent g-r process does not need traps in an oxide layer exhibiting a wide distribution of time constants.…”

Estimation of the lowest limit of 1/f noise in semiconductor materials

“…3.c represents the current fluctuations due to a single X-center. The total noise in the probe volume is obtained by [9] .…”

“…7). As is shown in [9], an rough estimate for ̂ and for ̂ is provided by the intersection of the two straight lines and .…”

“…The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the essential features of the intermittent g-r process. The results of this section have already been published in [9] and are summarized as far as they are of relevance for the following. In Section 3, we estimate the lowest frequency limit to 1/f noise and investigate the dependence of 1/f noise and g-r noise on time.…”

“…These on-off states follow power-law statistics over a wide range of timescales from micro-seconds to minutes. These findings have been transferred to semiconductor materials when applying intermittency to the non-radiative g-r process [9]. As a result, a generalized form of Hooge's relation has been derived which also applies also for a slope .…”