Optical properties of copper in silicon: Excitons bound to isoelectronic copper pairs

Abstract

Copper doping of silicon crystals results in an intense emission at 1.014 eV. The photoluminescence spectrum exhibits a characteristic structure consisting of a narrow nophonon line and equispaced lower-energy resonant-mode phonon replicas. The typical phonon energy is 7.0 meV. We observe isotope shifts of the lines which conclusively show that copper is incorporated in the luminescent defect. Combination with the observed quadratic dependence of the emission intensity on copper concentration leads us to suggest copper pairs as recombination centers. The symmetry of the pair as determined from uniaxial stress and Zeeman data is that of a $〈111〉$ configuration. The no-phonon line structure and the splitting in external fields indicate an exciton localized at an isoelectronic trap. The exciton is discussed in terms of an isoelectronic donor combining the present data with recent deep-level transient-spectroscopy results.