Non-ohmic hopping conduction of a diode base extracted from the diode current-voltage characteristics

¹ V.E. Lashkaryov Institute of Semiconductor Physics, Nauki Ave 41, 03028 Kiev, Ukraine
² International Laboratory of High Magnetic Fields and Low Temperatures, Wroclaw, Poland

^a e-mail: borblik@isp.kiev.ua

Received: 14 May 2013
Revised: 6 September 2013
Accepted: 16 December 2013
Published online: 27 January 2014

Abstract

Using the method of extracting a series resistance from a p-n diode current-voltage characteristics developed earlier, parameters of low-temperature non-ohmic conduction in bases of two types of silicon diodes have been studied. In the diode of the first type, with finite value of impurity ionization energy, low-temperature impurity breakdown in the diode base is accompanied by hysteresis of its conduction; in the diode of the second type, the impurity breakdown occurs in soft form. In the pre-breakdown region, the results obtained for the diodes of both types, agree completely with existing picture of non-ohmic hopping conduction in spite of significant space inhomogeneity of the diode structures and non-equilibrium character of the transport in them. In the post-breakdown region, the certain peculiarities are available. For the first time the activationless hopping conduction has been revealed in crystalline silicon.