Auger recombination and junction resistance in lead-tin telluride

Abstract

The rate of Auger recombination in materials with a many-valley band structure such as that of PbTe is calculated in this paper. It is found that recombination comes principally from the collision of current carriers in different valleys; the recombination rate can be large at quite low temperatures if the ratio of transverse-to-longitudinal effective masses in a valley is far from unity. The calculated rate sets an upper limit to the resistance of a simple p-n junction in such materials; for material of band gap 0.1. eV, this limit is 6 Ω cm2 at 77 °K.