Radiation source dependence of degradation and recovery of irradiated In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As PIN photodiodes

Irradiation damage and its recovery behavior resulting from thermal annealing in In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As PIN photodiodes, subjected to a 20-MeV alpha ray, are studied. The degradation of the electrical and optical performance of diodes increases with increasing fluence. In the In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As epitaxial layers, hole and electron capture levels are induced by irradiation. The influence of the radiation source on the degradation and recovery is then discussed by comparison to 1-MeV electrons and 1-MeV fast neutrons with respect to the numbers of knock-on atoms and the nonionizing energy loss (NIEL). Isochronal thermal annealing for temperatures ranging from 75 to 300/spl deg/C shows that the device performance degraded by the irradiation recovers by thermal annealing, and that the recovery behavior has a radiation source dependence. The recovery increases with increasing annealing temperature. The amount of recovery for alpha rays is nearly the same as for neutron irradiation, while that for electron irradiation is much larger. The radiation source dependence of performance degradation is attributed to the difference of mass and the probability of nuclear collision for the formation of lattice defects.