Properties of electrically active structural defects in crystalline semiconductors

The internal structures, composite elements, electrophysical properties, and characteristic parameters of impurity clouds, noise supertraps, disordered domains, and stacking defects are compared in crystalline semiconductors. It is shown that the mentioned macrodefects possess common properties: They have a nucleus and an impurity atmosphere, are separated by a potential barrier, are shaped with the participation of Frenkel defects and oxygen ions, have a threshold inclusion, sharply increase the rate of charge carrier generation-recombination as the electrical field grows, etc. It is noted that current channels in non-crystalline semiconductors are characterized by properties close to these after they have been formed. It is assumed that the electrical activity of the structural macrodefects in crystalline semiconductors may be related to the fundamental properties of noncrystalline semiconductors (for instance, the resistance switching effect). Domains adjoining a macrodefect and destroyed by it visibly manifest these properties.Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 4, pp. 95–100, April, 1988.