Plan View and Cross-Sectional View EBIC Measurements: Effect of e-Beam Injection Conditions on Extracted Minority Carrier Transport Properties

The application of low-doped epitaxial layers and the increase of complexity of silicon photodiode design require the knowledge of the basic physical parameters, such as minority carrier lifetime or diffusion length, to improve the photodiode performance simulation. In this paper, electron-beam-induced current technique is used to evaluate minority carrier lifetime and diffusion length on a silicon photodiode. Particular focus is to compare plan view and cross-sectional view testing geometry, and also to evaluate artefacts introduced by high injection conditions unavoidable in lifetime measurement.