Trap Concentrations in Germanium, their Determination from Lifetime Measurements and the Relation to a Practical Breakdown Voltage in p-n Junction Rectifiers

Abstract

A relation has been found experimentally between a practical breakdown voltage in alloyed p-n junction rectifiers and the trap concentration in the basic n-type germanium which is shown in Fig. la. The “breakdown voltages” of various rectifiers (which shall be described more in detail later on) are plotted on the ordinate and a value n _o−p ₀+N _t is plotted on the abscissa of this log-log graph. N _t is the trap concentration, n _o the concentration of free electrons, p ₀ the concentration of free holes respectively in the basic n-type germanium from which the rectifiers were manufactured. It can be seen that the points lie fairly well on a straight line with a slope of —1/2. Fig. 1 b shows that no definite relation exists between n ₀−p ₀ alone and the „breakdown voltage“.