Possible Mechanism for Radiationless Recombination in Semiconductors

Abstract

A set of two Auger-type processes has been found by which the trapping of a hole or electron can occur with the emission of an energetic hole or electron instead of a photon. A rough calculation is made of the cross section of the combination of the two processes as well as the cross section of the radiative process. For a wide class of semiconductors, it is found that the combination of the radiationless processes will predominate over the radiative one under practically all operating conditions.