Thermal Admittance Studies of Electron-Irradiated CdGeAs2

Abstract

AbstractBrudnyi, et al., and Zwieback, et al., have shown that introducing damage by irradiation with MeV electrons can alter the electrical and optical properties of undoped p-type CdGeAs2(CGA) crystals. Brudnyi's studies of the electrical transport properties of isochronally annealed samples demonstrated type conversion and identified at least two new centers, one a stable donor. Zwieback used multi-MeV electrons to introduce compensating donors, thereby, significantly improving the optical transparency of CGA crystals. However, at the present little is known about these centers. Therefore, we have studied these centers by observing the properties of electron-irradiated specimens using Thermal Admittance Spectroscopy (TAS) and correlated the results of these measurements with capacitance-voltage measurements and Hall effect measurements. Measurements before an after irradiation are compared. The as-grown native acceptor concentrations in our samples varied from a low in the mid 1016 cm−3to nearly 1019 cm−3. Significant changes in the electrically active states in the band gap were seen as a result of a single irradiation with 2 MeV electrons to a total dose of 5 × 105cm−2. The samples appear to respond more strongly than Brudnyi's samples. The thermal activation energies have been determined using TAS and they will be reported.