Part III - Papers - Photoconductive and Electrical Properties of Uncompensated Beryllium-Doped Germanium

Beryllium is the most soluble of the double-acceptor impurities in germanium; the solubility is at least 1 x 10 19 atoms cm3. Photoconductive, optical, and electrical measurements were made on a set of Ge:Be samples grown without other intentionally added imp~ivities. The excited-states spectrum of beryllium in germanium was determined both in zero field and in magnetic fields up to 30 kc. It was found that the absorption 0-f lines in the vicinity of the G line increased markedly with increasing magnetic field. The ioniza-tion energy of neutral beryllium in germanium was determined to be 24.3 * 0.1 mez: using the excited-states spectrum. An infrared detector using a Ge:Be element was found to have a normalized detectivity D* (50 p, 1000 cps, 1 cps) of 9 X ldO cm-~ps"~-w-'. The Ge:Be sambles exhibited low-field breakdown and inibzirity band conduction effects at low temperatures. WHILE the properties of most dopants in germanium have been thoroughly investigated, the properties of beryllium in germanium have had relatively little attention. Much of the work that has been done' has been concerned with the properties of singly ionized beryllium in germanium. The purpose of the present work was to determine the photoconductive and electrical properties of beryllium-doped germanium (Ge:~e) with a small concentration of other electrically active impurities. Ge:Be is of special interest since beryllium is the most soluble of the known double-acceptor impurities in germanium. MATERIALS PREPARATION A set of &:Be crystals with beryllium concentrations between 5 x 1013 and 1x 10'' cmm3 and without other intentionally added impurities was grown in a hydrogen atmosphere by the horizontal zone-refining techniques described by Swiggard and Shenker.2 The segregation coefficient of beryllium in germanium was found to be about 0.07 and its maximum solubility was found to be greater than 1 x 10'' atoms cm-3 which is in agreement with previous results.' Most of the crystals were found to have a small net concentration of shallow acceptors; for example, a crystal having a beryllium concentration of 1.1 X 1016 cm-3 was found to have a net concentration of shallow acceptors of less than 1.5 X 1013 cm-3. Ingots designed to have a beryllium concentration of 1 x 1017 cm-3 or less exhibited a loss of electrically active beryllium. That is, the beryllium concentration was lower than expected and the decrease of the beryllium concentration along the length of the ingot was much larger than expected. It is hypothesized that this effect is due to the oxidation of the beryllium by the residual oxygen in the system. This effect is similar to but not as severe as the effect observed with boron in germani~m.3, 4 OPTICAL ABSORPTION SPECTRUM The excited-states spectrum of neutral beryllium atoms in germanium was studied by measuring the infrared optical absorption spectrum. A typical spectrum is shown in Fig. 1; the labeling of the absorption lines follows that of Fisher and Fan.* The spacings between the observed lines and the D line are nearly equal to the corresponding spacings for the other ac -ceptors in germanium.5-7 By the use of the theoretical result67' that the neutral impurity ionization energy is 2.53 mev larger than the energy of the D line, the ionization energy of neutral beryllium in germanium was determined to be 24.3 * 0.1 mev at 4.2"K. This method yields a more precise value of the impurity ionization energy than the usual Hall effect method.' The absorption spectrum of Ge:Be was also measured as a function of magnetic field using a magnetic field parallel to the incident radiation and using unpolarized radiation. A typical spectrum taken at 30 kG is shown in Fig. 2. An unexpected observation is that the absorption of the lines in the vicinity of the G line (there is a strong possibility that some of these lines may be associated with lines other than the G line) increases with magnetic field. RESISTIVITY AND HALL DATA Measurements of Hall voltage vs temperature were made on several of the samples. The thermal activa-