JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS

VOLUME 86, NUMBER 11

1 DECEMBER 1999

Generalized analysis of quasi-steady-state and quasi-transient

measurements of carrier lifetimes in semiconductors
Henning Nagel,a) Christopher Berge, and Armin G. Aberleb)
Institut fur Solarenergieforschung Hameln-Emmerthal (ISFH), D-31860 Emmerthal, Germany

Received 7 April 1999; accepted for publication 18 August 1999

Recently, a simple yet powerful carrier lifetime technique for semiconductor wafers has been
introduced that is based on the simultaneous measurement of the light-induced photoconductance of
the sample and the corresponding light intensity Appl. Phys. Lett. 69, 2510 1996. In combination
with a light pulse from a flash lamp, this method allows the injection level dependent determination
of the effective carrier lifetime in the quasi-steady-state mode as well as the quasi-transient mode.
For both cases, approximate solutions those for steady-state and transient conditions of the
underlying semiconductor equations have been used. However, depending on the actual lifetime
value and the time dependence of the flash lamp, specific systematic errors in the effective carrier
lifetime arise from the involved approximations. In this work, we present a generalized analysis that
avoids these approximations and hence substantially extends the applicability of the
quasi-steady-state and quasi-transient methods beyond their previous limits. 1999 American
Institute of Physics. S0021-89799907922-0

I. INTRODUCTION

while a short time constant leads to quasi-transient measurements. The time dependent absolute values of the photoconductance ph(t) of the wafer and the flash lamp intensity It
are simultaneously recorded with an rf bridge and a calibrated concentrator solar cell, respectively. As shown in Ref.
10, the time dependent values of the excess carrier density
n and the photogeneration rate G within the sample under
test can be calculated from these data. Hence, the injection
level dependence of the effective carrier lifetime can be measured in an elegant and fast way.
For quasi-steady-state measurements, the user selects the
longest available time constant of the flash lamp. In this case,
short effective carrier lifetimes eff(n) can be measured
assuming steady-state conditions:8

Measurements of the effective carrier recombination

lifetime eff of crystalline silicon wafers have extensively
been used in the past for process and device optimization.
Frequently, eff has also been determined as a function of the
bulk excess carrier concentration or, equivalently, the bulk
injection level n to gain improved insight into device
physics. The latter measurements enable the determination of
important material parameters such as the Auger recombination coefficients1 and the capture cross sections of specific
bulk defects,2 as well as the clarification of the properties of
interface states at silicon/insulator interfaces.35
In general, these measurements were performed in the
transient mode where the decay of the excess carriers generated by a short light pulse is, upon termination of the illumination, contactlessly recorded by an rf bridge circuit6 or
microwave reflection.7 The main advantage of transient measurements is that no absolute but only relative measurements
of the excess carrier concentration are required. A drawback
of the transient approach is the fact that the measurement of
short carrier lifetimes requires fast electronics for recording
the photoconductance decay and a light pulse with a very
steep cut-off ramp.
Recently, an alternative carrier lifetime method based
on the measurement of the photoconductance under quasisteady-state or quasi-transient illumination has been proposed by Sinton et al.8,9 In this approach the wafer under test
is illuminated by light from a flash lamp, whereby the decay
time constant of the flash lamp is adjusted by the user. A
long time constant leads to quasi-steady-state measurements,

eff.steady n

n
.
G

The effective carrier lifetimes that can be determined with

good accuracy using this approximate analysis of quasisteady-state measurements are limited to values well below
the longest available time constant flash of the flash lamp.
The reason is that the excess carrier density n must be in
equilibrium with the external light intensity at every point in
time.
Conversely, using short i.e., rapidly decaying light
pulses, long effective carrier lifetimes can be measured with
the same system in the quasi-transient mode.8 Here, the photoconductance data are analyzed after the photogeneration
has decreased to small levels. Hence, the effective carrier
lifetime eff of the sample is approximately given by the
fundamental decay mode of true transient measurements
there, only those data with G0 are considered in the
analysis:1

Electronic mail: h.nagel@isfh.de

Now with: Photovoltaics Special Research Center, University
of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia; electronic mail:
a.aberle@unsw.edu.au

0021-8979/99/86(11)/6218/4/$15.00

eff.trans n
6218

n
.
dn/dt

1999 American Institute of Physics

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J. Appl. Phys., Vol. 86, No. 11, 1 December 1999

Nagel, Berge, and Aberle

An advantage of the transient method is the fact that it is not

necessary to measure the intensity It of the flash lamp. The
major disadvantage when using Eq. 2 is that the effective
carrier lifetime of the sample must be much longer than the
decay time constant flash of the flash lamp, which is a consequence of the underlying assumption of zero photogeneration.
As the magnitude of the effective carrier lifetime of the
sample under test is not known a priori, a test measurement
must be performed with the above instrument in order to
select: i the appropriate data evaluation procedure Eqs. 1
or 2 and ii the appropriate time constant of the flash
lamp. Additionally, the effective carrier lifetime of a wafer
often depends strongly on the excess carrier density. Hence,
in many practical situations the wafer must be measured in
the quasi-steady-state mode and the quasi-transient mode at
different injection levels.
In this work, we build the bridge between the abovementioned steady-state and transient analysis of photoconductance data measured either in the quasi-steady-state mode
or the quasi-transient mode. In order to reveal the fundamental behavior, we first discuss the case of a spatially uniform
generation rate throughout the sample, uniform sample properties doping density, carrier lifetime, carrier mobility, and
negligible surface recombination. The more general case including spatially nonconstant photogeneration and nonzero
surface recombination will be treated subsequently.

4 for G(t)dn/dt and G(t)dn/dt, respectively.

These are the limiting cases of temporally constant G leading to dn/dt0) or G0.
In the lifetime tester mentioned above, the photogeneration is realized by a flash lamp. Among more complicated
time dependencies, the light generation function can be chosen to be a steep turn-on ramp, a short plateau, and an exponential decay.9 In this case the photogeneration can be approximated by the expression
G t

for t0

G 0 exp t/ flash

n t

n
1
GU J,
t
q

and

where U is the recombination rate, q is the elementary

charge, and J is the electron current density. In the case of
spatially uniform photogeneration and zero surface recombination, the electric field within the sample is zero and the
carrier concentration spatially uniform. Hence, the last term
on the right-hand side of Eq. 3 vanishes. Upon insertion of
the classic relationship Un/ b between the recombination rate U and the bulk carrier lifetime b and exploiting
that b eff in this case, Eq. 3 can be written as
n t
.
dn t
G t
dt

This is the generalized data analysis proposed in this work

for quasi-steady-state and quasi-transient carrier lifetime
measurements. Under the above-mentioned conditions, it is
valid for any carrier lifetime of the sample and any time
dependence of the flash lamp! The time constant of the flash
lamp can be selected in such a way that It and pht can be
recorded most conveniently. Note that the steady-state and
transient solutions Eqs. 1 and 2 are obtained from Eq.

Insertion of Eqs. 5 and 6 into Eqs. 1 and 2 allows the

calculation of the effective carrier lifetimes eff.steady and
eff.trans in the steady-state and transient situations, respectively. Their relative deviations from eff are

for t0

flash eff
G e t/ flashe t/ eff .
flash eff 0

The starting point is the generally valid continuity equation for the excess electron density nnn 0 in
semiconductors11

eff n

In order to determine the systematic errors that, under the

above-mentioned conditions, occur in quasi-steady-state and
quasi-transient measurements if their analysis is based on the
steady-state and transient solutions, we calculate n(t) for
the photogeneration rate of Eq. 5 assuming effconstant
i.e., independent of n). In this case the solution for n(t)
in the differential equation 4, with the boundary condition
n(t0)0, becomes

II. THEORY
A. Spatially uniform photogeneration and zero
surface recombination

6219

eff.steady

eff.steady eff
eff.steady

eff.trans eff

eff.trans

eff.trans

b 1/a 1 a
b 1/a 1 1

a1
b

1/a 1

where a eff / flash and bG(t)/G 0 . For small eff / flash

and G(t)/G 0 ratios, Eq. 7 can be approximated by

eff.steady

eff
,
flash

showing that quasi-steady-state measurements can be analyzed with an error of less than 10% with the steady-state
analysis if the eff / flash and G(t)/G 0 ratios are both below
0.1. A corresponding analysis of Eq. 8 shows that quasitransient measurements can be analyzed with an error of less
than 10% with the transient analysis of Eq. 2 if eff / flash
2.5 and G(t)/G 0 0.01. Addition of Eqs. 7 and 8
shows that

eff.steady

1.

10

eff.trans

Hence, in the intermediate range i.e., 0.1 eff / flash 2.5

the error in eff caused by the approximate analysis of quasisteady-state or quasi-transient measurements can be substantial.
The errors given by Eqs. 7 and 8 are plotted in Fig. 1
as a function of ratios eff / flash and G(t)/G 0 . The left y axis
shows the systematic error that occurs if a quasi-steady-state

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6220

J. Appl. Phys., Vol. 86, No. 11, 1 December 1999

Nagel, Berge, and Aberle

where S front and S back are the surface recombination velocities of the front and back surface, respectively. Integration of
Eq. 11 over the wafer thickness W with the boundary conditions, Eqs. 12 and 13, yields
n av t
dn av t
,
G av t
dt
eff n av

14

with
n av t
G av t

1
W

1
W

W/2

W/2

W/2

W/2

and
FIG. 1. Calculated dependence of the relative systematic errors ( eff.steady
eff)/ eff.steady left y axis and ( eff.trans eff)/ eff.trans right y axis on the
ratio eff / flash for different normalized generation rates. The decay of the
flash light is assumed to be exponential.

measurement is analyzed with the steady-state solution of

Eq. 1, whereas the right y axis shows the error occurring if
a quasi-transient measurement is analyzed with the transient
solution of Eq. 2. The time dependence in this plot is given
by the parameter G(t)/G 0 . The limiting cases of true
transient measurements and true steady-state measurements can clearly be seen in Fig. 1 top right and lower left
corner, respectively. Note that the correct analysis of quasisteady-state and quasi-transient measurements Eq. 4 reduces all errors in Fig. 1 to zero. Hence, the generalized data
analysis allows the correct determination of eff regardless of
the eff / flash and G(t)/G 0 ratios, substantially extending the
applicability of the quasi-steady-state and quasi-transient
methods beyond their previous limits.

B. Nonuniform photogeneration, nonzero surface

recombination, negligible electric field

In the important case of photogeneration which is nonuniform perpendicular to the wafer surfaces, nonzero surface
recombination, and negligible electric field i.e., lowinjection conditions, Eq. 3 transforms to1

n x,t
2 n x,t
n x,t
G x,t
D n
t
b n
x2

11

for p-type material. D n is the electron diffusion constant. The

loss of excess minority carriers at the two surfaces at
xW/2 is given by the boundary conditions

n x,t
Dn
x

W
S frontn
,t ,
2
xW/2

and
D n

n x,t
x

S backn
xW/2

12

W
,t ,
2

13

1
n av t

eff(n av)
W

n x,t dx,

15
16

G x,t dx,

W/2

W/2

S backn

n x,t
W
,t
dxS frontn
b n
2
W
,t
2

17

where the definition of the effective carrier lifetime eff in

Eq. 17 is based on the relationship U effn av / eff . If Eq.
14 is resolved for eff we again obtain Eq. 4, whereby n
and G are replaced by their spatially averaged quantities,
respectively. Therefore, the generalized data analysis proposed in this work as well as the error analysis described
above also apply to this more general case.
It should be noted that for high surface recombination
velocities the solution of the differential equation 11 under
the boundary conditions, Eqs. 12 and 13, shows that the
spatial excess carrier density distribution in the wafer and
hence eff) is different under steady-state and transient
illumination.10,12 The carrier recombination at the surfaces,
especially at the illuminated front surface, turns out to be
predominant in the steady-state mode. In order to give an
example, consider the case where the photogeneration is spatially uniform, S front and S back both approach infinity, and the
bulk lifetime is infinite. In this case the theoretical analysis
shows that the transient mode yields a eff that is 22% larger
than in the steady-state mode.1 Spatially nonuniform photogeneration leads to even larger differences. Hence, the effective carrier lifetime of a wafer featuring poorly passivated
surfaces depends on the time constant of the flash lamp. It
must be emphasized that this is a fundamental physical effect
that is due to the carrier transport mechanisms within the
sample and that this effect has nothing to do with the errors
that arise if quasi-steady-state and quasi-transient measurements are analyzed with Eqs. 1 and 2.
III. EXPERIMENT

In order to give an illustrating example for the differences in the effective lifetime obtained from the standard
steady-state data analysis Eq. 1 and the generalized data
analysis proposed in this work, we performed quasi-steadystate measurements ( flash2.3 ms on a 300 m thick boron
doped float-zone silicon wafer covered on both sides with a
well-passivating silicon nitride film. The corresponding re-

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J. Appl. Phys., Vol. 86, No. 11, 1 December 1999

Nagel, Berge, and Aberle

6221

the photogeneration rate Gt and the excess carrier concentration n(t) within the semiconductor sample. It is shown
that the previously used approximate solutions for the analysis of the measured data involve specific systematic errors
that depend on the actual carrier lifetime of the sample and
the time dependence of the flash lamp. These errors limited
the applicability of the quasi-steady-state and quasi-transient
carrier lifetime measurements to the regimes flash10 eff
and flash0.4 eff , respectively. The generalized analysis
presented here avoids these approximations and hence substantially extends the applicability of the quasi-steady-state
and quasi-transient methods beyond their previous limits.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FIG. 2. Representative example of a quasi-steady-state measurement on a

singlecrystalline silicon wafer. The lower data are obtained using the accurate analysis proposed in this work, whereas the upper data are obtained if
the quasi-steady-state measurement is analyzed with the steady-state theory.
Both surfaces of the silicon wafer are covered with well-passivating (S 50
cm/s plasma silicon nitride films to enlarge eff .

sults are shown in Fig. 2. As can be seen, at low excess

carrier concentrations the standard data analysis overestimates eff by as much as 40% for this wafer, clearly revealing the need to use the generalized analysis.
IV. CONCLUSIONS

In conclusion, this work presents a generalized data

analysis for quasi-steady-state and quasi-transient carrier
lifetime measurements. This powerful type of measurement,
which has recently been introduced by Sinton et al.,8,9 simultaneously measures the time dependent absolute values of

The authors would like to thank R. Hezel for his continuous support and J. Schmidt and R. Sinton for helpful
discussions. The ISFH is supported by the State of Niedersachsen Lower Saxony and is a member of the Forschungsverbund Sonnenenergie, Germany.
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2

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