Annealing method to increase minority carrier life-time for neutron transmutation doped semiconductor materials

摘要

Semiconductor materials which have been doped by neutron transmutation require annealing at high temperatures in order to alleviate radiation damage and to restore electrical resistivity; however, the minority carrier lifetime is reduced significantly through the irradiation and/or the annealing process. A method for increasing the minority carrier lifetime while maintaining the restored electrical resistivity is achieved by cooling the heated annealed materials at a cooling rate less than about 4 C. per minute and preferably less than about 3. degree. C. per minute to ambient temperatures.