Radiative Recombination in Silicon p‐n Junctions

Abstract

Abstract The electroluminescence of silicon was investigated in the temperature range between 300 and 77 °K. The near edge emission is due to indirect band‐to‐band transitions associated with TO and TA phonon emission/absorption. The intensity‐voltage relation shows that this emission is connected with the diffusion current. At low voltages, additional long wavelength emission is observed which is connected with recombination in the space charge region. An absolute measurement of the internal quantum efficiency yields a room temperature value of 2 × 10 −6 for the band‐to‐band emission. This value is well described by a theoretical radiative lifetime derived from van Roosbroeck‐Shockley statistics and by an experimental non‐radiative lifetime.