Cathodoluminescence scanning electron microscopy of semiconductors

Yacobi, B. G.; Holt, D. B.

doi:10.1063/1.336491

Cited by 243 publications

(138 citation statements)

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“…The first applications of CL were in mineralogy and petrology where the CL emission gives an indication of rare earth and transition metal content (Smith & Stenstrom, 1965). CL is also widely used in the study of semiconductors, due to the strong emission of light possible as a result of radiative recombination of electron-hole pairs generated by the primary beam (Yacobi & Holt, 1986). The emission can be intrinsic in nature, i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ionoluminescence in the Helium Ion Microscope

et al. 2012

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Ionoluminescence (IL) is the emission of light from a material due to excitation by an ion beam. In this work, a helium ion microscope (HIM) has been used in conjunction with a luminescence detection system to characterize IL from materials in an analogous way to how cathodoluminescence (CL) is characterized in a scanning electron microscope (SEM). A survey of the helium ion beam induced IL characteristics, including images and spectra, of a variety of materials known to exhibit CL in an SEM is presented. Direct bandgap semiconductors that luminesce strongly in the SEM, are found not do so in the HIM, possibly due to defect-related non-radiative pathways created by the ion beam. Other materials do, however, exhibit IL, including a cerium-doped garnet sample, quantum dots and rare earth doped LaPO 4 nanocrystals. These emissions are a result of transitions between f electron states or transitions across size dependent band gaps. In all these samples, IL is found to decay with exposure to the beam, fitting well to double exponential functions. In an exploration of the potential of this technique for biological tagging applications, imaging with the IL emitted by rare earth doped LaPO 4 nanocrystals, simultaneously with secondary electron imaging, is demonstrated at a range of magnifications.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ionoluminescence in the Helium Ion Microscope

et al. 2012

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“…14 The accelerating voltage was in the range of 10-20 keV. The beam current was kept constant at 100 nA.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Passivation of surface and bulk defects in p -GaSb by hydrogenated amorphous silicon treatment

Dutta

Sreedhar

Bhat

et al. 1996

Journal of Applied Physics

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Passivation of point and extended defects in GaSb has been observed as a result of hydrogenated amorphous silicon ͑a-Si:H͒ treatment by the glow discharge technique. Cathodoluminescence ͑CL͒ images recorded at various depths in the samples clearly show passivation of defects on the surface as well as in the bulk region. The passivation of various recombination centers in the bulk is attributed to the formation of hydrogen-impurity complexes by diffusion of hydrogen ions from the plasma. a-Si:H acts as a protective cap layer and prevents surface degradation which is usually encountered by bare exposure to hydrogen plasma. An enhancement in luminescence intensity up to 20 times is seen due to the passivation of nonradiative recombination centers. The passivation efficiency is found to improve with an increase in a-Si:H deposition temperature. The relative passivation efficiency of donors and acceptors by hydrogen in undoped and Te-compensated p-GaSb has been evaluated by CL and by the temperature dependence of photoluminescence intensities. Most notably, effective passivation of minority dopants in tellurium compensated p-GaSb is evidenced for the first time.

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“…However, the utility of CL depth profiling is limited by the fact that most carriers bound with an energy lower than E b can be ionized by the beam, and most excited electrons are promoted into the conduction band. Hence, recombination can proceed through any one of the j allowed pathways in the solid, 18 giving rise to competition ( Fig. 1(b)) that affects the intensities of all CL emission peaks.…”

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confidence: 99%

Role of recombination pathway competition in spatially resolved cathodoluminescence spectroscopy

Toth

Zachreson

Aharonovich

2014

Applied Physics Letters

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Cathodoluminescence (CL) analysis enables characterization of optoelectronic materials and devices with high spatial resolution. However, data interpretation is complicated by the competitive nature of the CL generation process. Specifically, spatially resolved CL profiles are affected by both CL center distributions, and by the unknown distributions of recombination centers that do not generate peaks in measured CL spectra. Here, we use depth-resolved CL to show that the contribution of the latter can be deduced and removed from spatially resolved CL data. The utility of this technique is demonstrated using CL depth profiles of color centers in diamond.

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Cathodoluminescence scanning electron microscopy of semiconductors

Cited by 243 publications

References 135 publications

Ionoluminescence in the Helium Ion Microscope

Ionoluminescence in the Helium Ion Microscope

Passivation of surface and bulk defects in p -GaSb by hydrogenated amorphous silicon treatment

Role of recombination pathway competition in spatially resolved cathodoluminescence spectroscopy

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