Minority carrier lifetime and diffusion length in Si1 x yGexCy and Si1 yCy heterolayers

The minority carrier lifetime and diffusion length in partially strain-compensated Si1 x yGexCy ternary alloys or tensilely strained Si1 yCy layers have been measured by using capacitance–time (C–t) transient technique. The substrate doping (NB) of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) grown Si0.835Ge0.15C0.015 films and solid phase epitaxial Si0.99C0.01 films was found to be approximately 1 1017 cm 3 which has been extracted from high frequency capacitance–voltage (CHF–VG) characteristics of MIS capacitors fabricated using SiO2 and ZrO2 films on Si0.99C0.01 and Si0.835Ge0.15C0.015, respectively. Minority carrier lifetimes of Si0.835Ge0.15C0.015 and Si0.99C0.01 films are found to be 2:4 10 6 and 9:2 10 9 s, respectively. The average values of the diffusion length were found to be 27 and 3 mm for Si0.835Ge0.15C0.015 and Si0.99C0.01 films, respectively. # 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved