Decay kinetics of photoconductivity of PbSnTe doped with indium

摘要

The temporal decay of persistent photoconductivity in PbSnTe films doped with indium were fit using a phenomenological model featuring a quasi‐Fermi level‐dependent activation energy. The resulting decay curves are nonexponential with a very fast initial relaxation followed by a slower decay due to an increase in the effective activation energy as the quasi‐Fermi level decreases. Numerical solutions to the rate equation governing the relaxation were used to fit the data with excellent results. The activation energy in the limit of low carrier densities is found to be 24 meV.