Studies of semiconductors Original Research Article

The recent progress in semiconductor technology calls for an excellent control of defects, both intrinsic defects (vacancies, interstitials, antisites) and extrinsic (dopants, impurity atoms). This requires techniques that are able to detect defects at constantly decreasing concentrations. The ability of identifying very low defect concentrations is the strength of spectroscopic techniques using radioactive dopants, like Mössbauer effect, perturbed γγ angular correlation, or tracer diffusion. Similarly, electrical and optical spectroscopic techniques profit from the use of radioactive dopants. The potential of these techniques will be illustrated by presenting results obtained for various intrinsic and extrinsic defects in Si, Ge, III–V, and II–VI semiconductors.