Switching in Semiconductor Diodes PDF
Preview Switching in Semiconductor Diodes
SWITCHING IN SEMICONDUCTOR DIODES MONOGRAPHS IN SEMICONDUCTOR PHYSICS Volume 1: Heavily Doped Semiconductors by Viktor I. Fistul' Volume 2: Liquid Semiconductors by V. M. Glazov, S. N. Chizhevskaya, and N. N. Glagoleva Volume 3: Semiconducting lI-VI, IV-VI, and V-VI Compounds by N. Kh. Abrikosov, V. F. Bankina, L. V. Poretskaya, L. E. Shelimova, and E. V. Skudnova Volume 4: Switching in Semiconductor Diodes by Yu. R. Nosov In preparation: Semiconducting Lead Chalcogenides by Yu. I. Ravich, B. A. Efimova, and I. A. Smirnov Organie Semiconductors and Biopolymers by L. I. Boguslavskii and A. V. Vannikov SWITCHING IN SEMICONDUCTOR DIODES Yurii R. Nosov A. F. laffe Physicotechnical Institute Leningrad, USSR Translated from Russian by Albin Tybulewicz Editor, Soviet Physics-Semiconductors <:E? PLENUM PRESS • NEW YORK-LONDON • 1969 Yurii Romanovich Nosov was born in 1931, in Moscow. He gradu ated in 1954 from the Physics Department of the M. V. Lomonosov State University in Moscow. Since graduation, he has been engaged in research on, and the design of, fast-response semiconductor pulse diodes. In 1964, Nosov was awarded the degree of Candidate of Technical Sciences by the A. F. loffe Physicotechnical Institute in Leningrad. In 1965, he was promoted to the rank of senior scientist in the specialty of electronic technology and devices. He is a mem ber of the All-Union Society "Znanie," the A. S. Popov Scientific and Technical Society for Radio Engineering and Electrical Communi- cations, and of the ''Trud'' Sporting Association. The original Russian text was published by Nauka Press, Moscow, in 1968 as part of aseries on "Physics of Semiconductors and Semi conducting Devices" and has been revised by the author for this English edition. /OpUli POMaItOBU~ HOCOB <P113114ECKI1E OCHOBbl PAEOTbl nOJlynpOBO.llHI1KOBOrO .ll110.llA B I1MnyJ lbCHO.\'! PE)I{\1ME FIZICHESKIE OSNOVY RABOTY POLUPROVODNIKOVOGO DIODA V IMPUL'SNOM REZHIME Library 01 Congress Catalog Card Number 69-12535 ISBN 978-1-4684-8195-2 ISBN 978-1-4684-8193-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1 007/978-1-4684-8193-8 © 1969 Plenum Press, New York Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1969 A Division of Plenum Publishing Corporation 227 West 17th Street, New York, N. Y. 10011 United Kingdom edition published by Plenum Press, London A Division of Plenum Publishing Company, Ltd. Donington House, 30 Norfolk Street, London W.C. 2, England All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher Preface to the American Edition It gives me great pleasure to learn that this book, whose ori gin owes much to the work of American scientists and engineers on semiconductor technology, will reach American and other English speaking readers. I am grateful to Plenum Publishing Corporation for arranging the American edition of this book and to Mr. Albin Tybulewicz for his translation, September 5, 1968 Yu. R. Nosov v Preface to the Russian Edition One of the most important applications of semiconductor diodes is their use in electronic pulse circuits. The response of these diodes under switching conditions is governed by the phenomena of accumulation and dispersal of non equlibrium carriers, which are also observed in other p-n junction devices. It was found in the late 1940's that when point-contact ger manium diodes were used in circuits through which short (several tenths of a microsecond) electrical pulses were being passed, the 1 effective reverse resistance of these diodes decreased considerably below the static value. Further studies showed that when a diode was switched rapidly from the forward to the reverse direction, an anomalously large reverse current flowed for some time. In view of the importance of this phenomenon in the efforts to reduce the response time of pulse circuits, many investigations of the phenomenon were carried out and these investigations pro vided the basis of a theory of transient processes in semiconductor diodes. It was established that the rate of dispersal of nonequilibrium carriers, accumulated in the diode base, is governed by the proper ties of the diode itself, as weIl as by the switching conditions. This made it possible to reduce the response time of the diodes and to d~velop methods for the determination of the optimal opera ting conditions of these devices in pulse circuits. Later it was found that this theory of transient processes had other important applications, in addition to its usefulness in reducing the response time of diodes and of pulse diode circuits. vii viii PREFACE TO THE RUSSIAN EDITION This theory has served as the corner-stone of the studies of the processes of the accumulation and dispersal of excess charges in transistors and thyristors and, through its application, the upper frequency limit of these devices has been increased. Secondly, the theory has stimulated the development of such new devices as charge-storage diodes and sorne special types of varactor forfre quency multiplication. The development of the theory of transient processes in diodes has made it possible condiderably to extend investigations of re laxation processes in semiconductors under nonequilibrium condi tions, in particular, the recombination of nonequilibrium carriers. The main purpose of this book is to acquaint the reader with the physical basis of the operation of a semiconductor diode under pulse conditions, and to give, whenever possible, quantitative rela tionships describing transients in diodes. The variety of various possible switching conditions in cir cuits is practically infinite and, therefore, it has not been possible to discuss all the conditions. Instead, adescription is given of the most general mathematical methods for solving the equations des cribing transient processes , and these methods are presented in such a way as to enable the reader to analyze those pulse conditions which are not discussed in this book. A model of a planar diode with a semi-infinite base is dis cussed in the greatest detail. This is done because the basic for mulas for this model are the simplest and clearest; moreover, the most important relationships obtained for the planar diode are found to apply approximately to other diodes. Problems associated with the application of the theory of transient processes in the practical design of fast-response diodes and of circuits incorporating such diodes are not discussed in this book; readers interested in the design aspects are directed to spe cialist texts on this subject [62,103, 166]. The list of references is reasonably complete but it does not cover fully all the numerous applications. For convenience, the symbols used are explained in the text and are also collected together in a separate list. PREFACE '1'0 THE RUSSIAN EDITION ix The author is grateful to Candidate of Technical Sciences L. S. Berman for reading the manuseript and for his valuable ad viee; to Candidate of Teehnical Seienees O. K. Mokeevfordiseuss ing some of the problems eondidered in this book; and to L. V. Gu byrin and L. A. Kuranova for their help in writing Chapter Irr and seleeting the literature relevant to this ehapter. The author 1s r. mueh indebted to S. Egorova without whose help in the prepara tion of the manuseript this book would not have been published. Contents Notation ... xiii CHAPTER I. Basic Electronics of the Switching Processes in Semiconductor p-n Junctions . 1 §1. Introduction ........•...•... 1 §2. Transformation of Basic Equations 4 §3. Solution of the Diffusion Equation (at Low Injection Leve ls) ................ . 10 CHAPTER II. Switching in a Planar Diode 25 §4. Transient Processes without a Limiting Resistance in the Diode Circuit .. 25 §5. Switching of a Diode Circuit with a Limiting Resistance . . . . . . . . .. . ........ . 38 §6. Switching of a Diode Circuit with an Infinite Resistance ........... . 53 §7. Small-Signal Transient Characteristics of a Diode ................... . 66 §8. Methods for the Observation of Transient Processes in Diodes ..... 69 §9. Main Experimental Results ...... . 82 CHAPTER III. Planar Diode with a Thin Base. 96 §10. Steady-State Distribution of Holes in the Base .................. . 96 §11. Switching without a Resistance in the Diode Circuit ............... . 107 §12. Switching in a Circuit with a Limiting Resistance .............. . 118 §13. General Estimate of the Response of a Thin-Base Diode ........ . 127 xi xii CONTENTS CHAPTER IV. Transient Processes in a Diode with a Small-Area Rectifying Contact ....... . 130 §14. Ideal Model of a Point-Contact Diode. . . . . . 131 §15. Transient Conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 §16. Experimental Investigations . . . . . . . . . . 153 CHAPTER V. Effect of an Electric Field in a Diode Base on Transient Processes ....... . 160 §17. Built-in Internal Field in a Diode Base. 160 §18. Forward-Biased Diode with a Built-in Field ..................•.... 165 §19. First (Recovery) Phase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 §20. Reverse Current Decay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 CHAPTER VI. Transient Processes in Diodes During the Passage of a Forward Current Pulse ............................... . 179 §21. Introduction .................... . 179 §22. Establishment of a Forward Resistance in a Planar Diode ............. . 183 §23. Establishment of a Forward Voltage Across a Diode with a Hemispherical p-n Junction ............... . 191 CHAPTER VII. Transient Processes in Semiconductor Diodes and Fundamentals of Recombination Theory ..... 197 §24. Introduction .................... . 197 §25. Lifetime of Holes under Various Recombination Conditions ................ 201 §26. Influence of Trapping Levels on Transient Processes in Diodes . . . . . . . . . . . .. 209 §27. Recombination Properties of Gold-Doped Germanium and Silicon • • . . . . . . . . • . . • . . .. 214 Literature Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 226 Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 231
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