Passivation and reactivation of deep Fe and Cu levels in p-type GaAs

Abstract

Epitaxial p-type GaAs layers were exposed to a hydrogen plasma. Some of the passivated samples were then annealed under reverse bias in order to determine the energy for thermal dissociation of the passivated deep level-hydrogen complex. In particular, the deep levels attributed to iron and copper were examined. Deep Level Transient Spectroscopy (DLTS) has been used to determine the extent of passivation and reactivation of these deep levels. Although passivation of the copper levels has previously been reported, this is the first time that passivation of the iron level has been observed. A dissociation energy of 0.83 eV was determined for the Fe-H complex.