Effect of bulk carrier generation-recombination centers upon the I-V characteristic of silicon PN junctions

Further experiments regarding the leakage current of mesa silicon PN junctions are presented. For gold diffused junctions, generation-recombination centers lead to a dominance of the bulk leakage current component both at reverse and low forward bias voltage but a minor surface component still controls the junction blocking capability. For electron irradiated junctions, the surface component of reverse current may be the primary component up to a junction temperature of 100-150°C. When the density of bulk generation-recombination centers is low, their influence on the reverse I-V characteristic is negligible from the room temperature up to above 200°C