Hydrogen indium vacancy complex VInH4 in n-type InP studied by positron-lifetime

Positron-lifetime experiments have been carried out on two undoped n-type liquid encapsulated Czochralski (LEC)-grown InP samples with different stoichiometric compositions in the temperature range 10–300 K. For temperatures below 120 K for P-rich InP and 100 K for In-rich InP, the positron average lifetime began to increase rapidly and then leveled off, which was associated with the charge state change of hydrogen indium vacancy complexes from (VInH4)+ to (VInH4)0. This phenomenon was more obvious in P-rich samples that have a higher concentration of VInH4. The transformation temperature of approximately 120 K suggests that the complex VInH4 is a donor defect and that the ionization energy is about 0.01 eV. The ionization of neutral VInH4 accounted for the decrease of the positron average lifetime when the sample was illuminated with a photon energy of 1.32 eV at 70 K. These results provide evidence for hydrogen complex defects in undoped LEC InP.