Minority Carrier Lifetime in Crystalline Semiconductors

Minority carrier lifetime is an important property of semiconducting materials, significantly impacting the performance and efficiency of devices such as solar cells, photodetectors, and light-emitting diodes. This chapter explores this concept and examines its role as an indicator of the material’s quality and its influence on the device’s performance. The factors affecting minority carrier lifetime, including material purity, structural defects, and impurities are analyzed along with their association with recombination processes. The four primary recombination mechanisms radiative, trap-assisted (Shockley-Read-Hall), Auger, and surface recombination are discussed. Additionally, experimental techniques for measuring carrier lifetime, such as photoluminescence decay, microwave photoconductance decay (μ-PCD), and surface photovoltage methods are reviewed for their utility in minority carrier lifetime measurements. This comprehensive chapter about minority carrier lifetime provides essential insights that can be used to understand and optimize semiconducting device performance.