Thermaly Stimulated Current (TSC) in porous silicon / Muhamad Shahril Zakaria

Charge trapping and detrapping within Porous Silicon (PSi) may easily occur due to numerous imperfections in its lattice. This is explained by the fact that heterogeneity at the interface between Si and PSi is the source of numerous discontinuities and imperfections in the Si crystals in addition to those existing in the porous layer. In the present work the method of TSC was applied for the calculation of activation energy of holes trap within PSi. The objective of this study is to produce porous silicon wafer and to determine its activation energy from the Thermally Stimulated Current (TSC) technique. Photoluminescence (PL) was used for the characterization of sample. Normally electrical properties measured by IV curve but in this work TSC method used to study of electrical properties. The advantages of this method are very sensitive measurement and capable to measure up to molecular level. As the PSi was temperature dependent, this research studies the temperature in the range between 80K until 300K.The difference in etching time leads to different degree of crystalline structure of Psi that has crystallographic orientation with a broad PL peak. It also leads to different activation energy obtained. Two methods were used which is TSC curve analysis and from equation. The result obtained for sample A, B, and C is 0.4 eV, 0.198 eV, and 0.19 eV for curve analysis. While the result obtained for sample A, B, and C is 0.244 eV, 0.23 eV, and 0.189 eV from the equation method.