Metastable Defects and Stretched Exponentials

Abstract

AbstractMetastability of defects in semiconductors provides the basis for (1)An integrated picture of defects that includes the DX center in crystalline HI-V compounds, the dangling-bond defect in amorphous Si, and ‘self-compensation’ effects in I1-VI compounds. The unifying physical property is the ability of many foreign atoms to have two nearly equal-energy sites, one with a shallow electronic level and the other with a deep level. (2)Elucidation of stretched-exponential kinetics in these materials, including the first demonstrable microscopic model for them. This stretched-exponential model is a distribution of independent response times.