Effects of Metastable Charge States on Short-Term Annealing in p-Type Silicon

In contrast to n-type material, short-term annealing of neutron-induced lifetime damage in p-type silicon is strongly dependent upon minority carrier density. While physical reordering is an important process, and may be somewhat dependent upon excess electron density in p-type material, arguments presented here indicate that this difference between n- and p-type material is primarily an electronic effect having to do with neutralization of metastable charge states induced during defect production. A qualitative model is presented which appears to be more consistent with experimental observations than those which depend upon physical defect motion alone.