Current Mechanisms in Zinc Diffusion-Doped Silicon Samples at T = 300 K

This work is devoted to the study of current flow in diffusion-doped zinc silicon samples in the dark and when illuminated with light with an intensity in the range from 0.6 to 140 lx and at a temperature of 300 K. At T = 300 K and in the dark, the type of the I–V characteristic contained all areas characteristic of semiconductors with deep energy levels. It was found that when illuminated with light, the type of I–V characteristics of the studied Si samples depended on the value of the applied voltage, the electrical resistivity of the samples, the light intensity, and their number reached up to 6. In this case, linear, sublinear, and superlinear sections were observed, as well as the switching point (sharp current jump) and areas with negative differential conductivities (NDC). The existence of these characteristic areas of the applied voltage and their character depended on the intensity of the light. The experimental data obtained were interpreted in the formation of low dimensional objects with the participation of multiply charged zinc nanoclusters in the bulk of silicon. They changed the energy band structure of single-crystal silicon, which affected generation-recombination processes in Si, leading to the types of I–V characteristics observed in the experiment.