Minority-carrier recombination in p-InP single crystals

We present a comprehensive and systematic study of minority-carrier lifetime and recombination mechanisms in p-InP single crystals. The study is based on steady state and time-resolved photoluminescence measurements at a wide temperature range (15–300 K). Possible recombination mechanisms are analyzed and compared in order to assess their influence on the free electron lifetime. It was found that nonradiative recombination at Zn-induced neutral acceptor centers is responsible for the short minority-carrier lifetime in this crystal down to a temperature of around 30 K. At lower temperatures three main processes determine the lifetime: radiative band-to-band recombination, radiative recombination in the deep acceptor level, and trapping at the shallow unintentional donor impurity centers.