4434

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 58, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2011

Improved Calculation of Charge Collection Probability From Within the Junction Well
Vincent K. S. Ong, Chee Chin Tan, Oka Kurniawan, and K. Radhakrishnan, Member, IEEE
AbstractIn this paper, the challenges to compute the charge collection probability from within an L-shaped junction well using the existing analytical expression are discussed. A solution is proposed to overcome these challenges. A good agreement has been found between the results computed using the proposed solution and those obtained from the nite-difference method and device simulator. The accuracy of the computed charge collection probability improves signicantly when the proposed solution is used. Index TermsCharge-carrier processes, semiconductor device measurement, semiconductor device modeling, simulation.

I. I NTRODUCTION HARGE collection refers to the separation of the generated charge carriers by the built-in electric eld at the charge collecting junction, i.e., p-n junction [1]. The charge collection can be studied through a quantity known as the charge collection probability Q(x, z) which is dened as a positiondependent probability that a generated charge carrier will be collected at the charge collecting junction [2]. Convoluting Q(x, z) with the generation volume function, a function which describes the distribution of generated charge carriers, gives the values of the normalized induced current generated as a result of charge collection. Fig. 1 shows the L-shaped junction well, one of the commonly fabricated nite junction shapes found in integrated circuits and semiconductor devices [3]. The analytical expressions for the charge collection both inside and outside of the innitely wide L-shaped junction well were derived by the method of images [4]. However, these expressions may not be very suitable for the analysis of the L-shaped junction well with nite width. Furthermore, these expressions involve some nonelementary functions, e.g., the Bessel function, which poses some difculties in the computation of the charge collection probability.

Fig. 1.

L- and U-shaped geometries.

Recently, the analytical expression for the charge collection probability from within nite-dimension L-shaped junction wells has been derived with the use of the Greens function method [5]. However, the charge collection proles computed using this analytical expression gave rise to oscillations, particularly for samples with small diffusion lengths. In this paper, a solution is proposed to eliminate the oscillations in the probability prole found in [5]. The accuracy of the computed charge collection probability has also been found to improve signicantly using this proposed solution. II. A NALYTICAL E XPRESSION A. Expression The L-shaped junction well, as shown in Fig. 1, is assumed to have an ohmic contact that spans squarely on the top surface, and the free semiconductor surface at x = d is assumed to have zero surface recombination velocity. The expression for the charge collection probability at the location (x , z ) for the Lshaped junction well with a junction depth of h, a width of d and as the reciprocal of the diffusion length L, i.e., = 1/L, is given as [5]

Manuscript received February 18, 2011; revised September 2, 2011; accepted September 7, 2011. Date of publication October 27, 2011; date of current version November 23, 2011. The review of this brief was arranged by Editor A. G. Aberle. V. K. S. Ong, C. C. Tan, and K. Radhakrishnan are with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798 (e-mail: vo@pmail.ntu.edu.sg; tanc0184@e.ntu.edu.sg; eradha@ntu.edu.sg). O. Kurniawan was with the Department of Computational Electronics and Photonics, Institute of High Performance Computing, A*STAR, Singapore 138632. He is now with the School of Mathematics and Science, Singapore Polytechnic, Singapore 139651 (e-mail: oka_kurniawan@sp.edu.sg). Color versions of one or more of the gures in this brief are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TED.2011.2169071

Q(x , z ) =
n=1,3,5,...

Qn_L-shaped 2 sin(pn x ) d sinh(n h)

(1a)

Qn_L-shaped =

0018-9383/$26.00 2011 IEEE

ONG et al.: IMPROVED CALCULATION OF CHARGE COLLECTION PROBABILITY FROM WITHIN JUNCTION WELL

4435

pn [sinh (n (h z )) (cosh(n z ) 1) 2 n + sinh(n z )(cosh (n (hz ))1)] + sinh(n z ) pn (1b)

where pn = n 2d n = p2 + 2 n
1/2

(2)

Although we discuss only the L-shaped junction well in this paper, it is also possible to use (1) and (2) to analyze the charge collection probability of U-shaped junction wells as well. This is because of the perfect reection of the charge carriers at the surface x = d of the L-shaped geometry. The U-shaped geometry can be treated as the combination of the L-shaped geometry and its mirror image with the line of symmetry at x = d. This is shown in Fig. 1. B. Challenges The reason for the oscillatory charge collection probability computed using (1) and (2) is explained as follows. Both the numerator and the denominator of (1b) contain hyperbolic functions. The values of these hyperbolic functions increase as n increases. When n is sufciently large, the values of these hyperbolic functions would eventually become innite, and hence, it would be too large to be handled by the computational software. Consequently, the terms Qn_L-shaped would become indeterminate, i.e., /, as both the hyperbolic functions in the numerator and the denominator of (1b) tend to innity. In [5] and [6], these indeterminate terms were simply assumed to be equal to zero. This oversimplied assumption, therefore, resulted in a premature truncation of the innite series, which, in effect, caused the charge collection probability prole to become oscillatory. III. P ROPOSED S OLUTION In this section, a solution to approximate the values of the indeterminate terms Qn_L-shaped is proposed. When n is sufciently large, the hyperbolic cosine functions in the existing expression (1b) will be much greater than unity, and hence, they can be set as follows: (cosh(n z ) 1) cosh(n z ) (cosh (n (h z )) 1) cosh (n (h z )) . (3a) (3b)

Fig. 2. Absolute values of the nth term in the innite-series analytical expression for the computation of the charge collection probability from within the L-shaped junction well computed using (1b) and (5) and the comparison between them. The parameters used are x = 2.5 m, z = 0.3 m, d = 5 m, h = 5 m, and L = 1 m.

By applying (3) and (4) to the existing expression (1b), we obtain the proposed Qn_L-shaped for the L-shaped junction well as Qn_L-shaped_proposed = 2 sin(pn x ) d pn exp (n (z h)) + 2 pn n . (5)

The proposed expression Qn_L-shaped_proposed is relatively less complex as compared to (1b). The values of Qn_L-shaped_proposed can be easily determined for all values of n. Hence, it would be an advantage to use (5) rather than (1b) to determine the value of the nth term in the innite series when n is sufciently large. The numerical value of the charge collection probability from within the L-shaped junction well is determined by summing up the values of each term in the innite-series analytical expression. The value of each term in the innite series is now determined as follows. For small values of n, the value of the nth term in the innite series is evaluated using (1b). This is because the existing expression will be able to determine the exact value of each term in the innite series for small values of n. When the hyperbolic function in the denominator of the existing expression becomes very large, (1b) will not be properly evaluated. Hence, the value of the nth term in the innite series has to be determined by using (5). The proposed solution is more accurate than the existing one because the inaccurate zeroterm assumption for the indeterminate terms has been replaced with the more accurate asymptotic approximation given in (5). IV. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION Fig. 2 shows the absolute values of Qn_L-shaped and Qn_L-shaped_proposed computed using (1b) and (5), respectively, for different values of n. It is found that the absolute value of Qn_L-shaped becomes indeterminate when n is greater than 451. However, the proposed expression (5) is able to compute its values for all the nth terms without much difculty.

In addition, the hyperbolic functions sinh(f (y)) and cosh(f (y)) can also be transformed into simple exponential functions without causing any signicant loss in accuracy, when f (y) is sufciently large, by using the following: sinh (f (y)) = 1/2 [exp (f (y)) exp (f (y))] 1/2 exp (f (y)) cosh (f (y)) = 1/2 [exp (f (y)) + exp (f (y))] 1/2 exp (f (y)) . (4a) (4b)

4436

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 58, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2011

magnitude when the proposed solution is used. Thus, one can conclude that the proposed solution has signicantly improved the accuracy of the computed charge collection probability. V. C ONCLUSION The solutions to overcoming the limitations of the existing analytical expression for computing the charge collection probability from within the L-shaped junction wells derived in [5] have been discussed. The proposed solution improves the accuracy of computing the charge collection probability. The results obtained using this proposed solution are found to be in better agreement with those obtained from the FDM and the device simulator.
Fig. 3. Charge collection probability proles from within the L-shaped junction well computed using the proposed solution, the FDM, the method in [5], and the MEDICI simulation, as well as their percentage differences with respect to that using MEDICI simulation. The parameters used are z = 0.3 m, d = 5 m, h = 5 m, and L = 1 m.

R EFERENCES
[1] D. B. Holt, Quantitative Scanning Electron Microscopy. London, U.K: Academic, 1974. [2] A.-A. S. Al-Omar, The collection probability and spectral response in isotype heterolayers of tandem solar cells, Solid State Electron., vol. 50, no. 9/10, pp. 16561666, Sep./Oct. 2006. [3] S. M. Sze and K. K. Ng, Physics of Semiconductor Devices, 3rd ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2007. [4] R. J. Soukup and J. P. Ekstrand, Electron-beam-induced currents collected by a p-n junction of nite junction depth, J. Appl. Phys., vol. 57, no. 12, pp. 53865395, Jun. 1985. [5] O. Kurniawan and V. K. S. Ong, Charge collection from within a collecting junction well, IEEE Trans. Electron Devices, vol. 55, no. 5, pp. 1220 1228, May 2008. [6] O. Kurniawan, Device parameters characterization with the use of EBIC, Ph.D. dissertation, Sch. Elect. Electron. Eng., Nanyang Technol. Univ., Nanyang, Singapore, 2008. [7] O. Kurniawan, C. C. Tan, V. K. S. Ong, E. Li, and C. J. Humphreys, A direct method for charge collection probability computation using the reciprocity theorem, IEEE Trans. Electron Devices, vol. 57, no. 10, pp. 2455 2461, Oct. 2010.

It can be seen in Fig. 2 that the Qn_L-shaped_proposed prole deviates from the Qn_L-shaped prole for small values of n. This is in line with our intuitive expectation as the assumptions used to obtain the proposed expressions do not hold for small values of n. On the other hand, when n is sufciently large, the values of Qn_L-shaped_proposed approach the values of Qn_L-shaped . The larger the value of n, the smaller the relative difference. This clearly shows the advantage of the proposed expression for large values of n. The charge collection probability proles from within the L-shaped junction well are shown in Fig. 3 where the inniteseries analytical expression (1a) was approximated using 20 000 terms. It can be seen that the proposed solution has solved the oscillatory problem encounter when it is computed using the method discussed in [5] and [6]. The charge collection prole computed using the proposed solution coincides with those computed using the nite-difference method (FDM) [7] with the horizontal and vertical grid spacings both set to 0.1 m and using MEDICI simulation with a grid size of 0.1 m and a square generation volume of sides of 0.2 m. The computation using the proposed solution is faster than the MEDICI simulation. However, it is slower compared to the FDM. Despite this, the proposed solution which improves the previous analytical expression enables the analyst to have an insight into the relationships and interactions between the physical parameters that inuence the charge collection probability. This cannot be seen so easily with either FDM or MEDICI simulation. Fig. 3 also shows the percentage differences of the computed charge collection probabilities with respect to the MEDICI simulation result. For the charge collection probabilities computed using the proposed solution, the mean absolute percentage difference with respect to the MEDICI simulation result is about 1%. This value is comparable to that of the case when the proles are computed using FDM, i.e., about 0.7%. It is also at least eight times lower as compared to that of the case when it is computed using the method discussed in [5] and [6]. As compared to the method discussed in [5] and [6], the maximum absolute percentage difference with respect to the MEDICI simulation result improves by at least an order of

Vincent K. S. Ong received the B.Eng. degree (with honors) in electrical engineering and the M.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees in electronics from the National University of Singapore, Singapore, in 1981, 1988, and 1995, respectively. For 11 years between 1981 and 1992, he held a variety of positions in the manufacturing and testing of integrated circuits at Hewlett Packard Company, both in Singapore and in the U.S. In 1992, he joined the Faculty of Engineering, National University of Singapore, where he managed a research center and worked on research relating to electron beam effects on integrated circuits. Since 1997, he has been with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where he was a Senior Lecturer and has been an Associate Professor since 1999. In 2005, he was a Visiting Fellow with the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K.

Chee Chin Tan received the B.Eng. degree (with honors) in electrical and electronic engineering from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore, in 2008, where he is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree. Since 2008, he has been a Student Researcher with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, where he has been working on the semiconductor material and device characterization with the use of electronbeam-induced-current (EBIC) technique. His research interests include semiconductor device modeling and simulation, as well as the application and the modeling of EBIC.

ONG et al.: IMPROVED CALCULATION OF CHARGE COLLECTION PROBABILITY FROM WITHIN JUNCTION WELL

4437

Oka Kurniawan received the B.Eng. degree in electronics and the Ph.D. degree from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore, in 2004 and 2008, respectively. From 2007 to 2011, he was a Research Engineer with the Department of Computational Electronics and Photonics, Institute of High Performance Computing, A*STAR, Singapore. He is currently a full-time Lecturer with Singapore Polytechnic, Singapore, and an Adjunct Lecturer with the Singapore Institute of Technology, Singapore. Since 2004, he has been working on simulation and modeling of semiconductor devices. His research interests include parameter extraction from semiconductor devices, modeling of the physical properties of the electron-beaminduced-current measurements, and modeling and simulation of nanodevices, particularly for optoelectronic applications.

K. Radhakrishnan (M01) received the M.Sc. degree in applied physics from the University of Madras, Chennai, India, the M.Tech. degree in materials science from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, India, and the Ph.D. degree in physics from the National University of Singapore, Singapore, in 1989. Since 1991, he has been with Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where he is currently an Associate Professor with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. His expertise is in the area of molecular beam epitaxial growth and characterization of IIIV compound semiconductors, low-dimensional and metamorphic compound semiconductor structures, fabrication of GaAs- and InP-based high-electron-mobility transistors and heterojunction bipolar transistors, and monolithic integration of devices for high-speed circuits. His current research interests include growth and characterization of GaN-based heterostructures for high-power/high-frequency applications. Dr. Radhakrishnan is a member of MRS.