The effect of ionization and displacement damage on minority carrier lifetime

Based on 1 MeV electrons and 40 MeV Si ion irradiations, the contribution of ionization and displacement damage to the decrease in the minority carrier lifetime of gate controlled lateral PNP (GLPNP) transistors is investigated by gate sweeping (GS) technique. Molecular hydrogen is employed to increase the ionization radiation sensitivity and help to understand the relationship between the minority carrier lifetime and ionization damage. Experimental results show that 1 MeV electrons mainly induce ionization damage to GLPNP transistors, 40 MeV Si ions primarily produce displacement defects in silicon bulk. For 40 MeV Si ions, with increasing the irradiation dose, the densities of interface trap and oxide charge are almost no change, the minority carrier lifetime obviously decreases. The decrease of the minority carrier lifetime is due to bulk traps induce by 40 MeV Si ions. For 1 MeV electrons, with increasing the irradiation dose, the densities of interface trap and oxide charge for the GLPNP with and without soaked in H₂ increase, and the minority carrier lifetime decreases. Compared with the GLPNP transistors without soaking in H₂, the density of the interface traps the irradiated GLPNP transistors by 1 MeV electrons and soaked in H₂ are larger and the minority carrier lifetime is lower. Therefore, both ionization and displacement damage can induce the decreases in the minority carrier lifetime including bulk minority carrier lifetime and surface minority carrier lifetime.