Gallium vacancies and gallium antisites as acceptors in electron-irradiated semi-insulating GaAs

Abstract

Positron-lifetime measurements show that acceptors are produced in semi-insulating GaAs by 1.5-MeV electron irradiation at 20 K. Two types of acceptors can be separated. The first ones are negative vacancy-type defects which anneal out over a very broad range of temperature between 77 and 500 K. The second ones are negative ion-type defects which are stable still at 450 K. The data show that these two types of defects are independent and do not form close pairs. We attribute both to gallium-related defects. We identify the ion-type acceptors as isolated gallium antisites. The vacancy-type acceptors are identified as gallium vacancies which are isolated or involved in negatively charged complexes. The introduction rate of the gallium antisite is estimated to be 1.8\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.3 ${\mathrm{cm}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}1}$ in the fluence range ${10}^{17}$--${10}^{18}$ ${\mathrm{cm}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}2}$ for 1.5-MeV electron irradiation at 20 K.