ABSTRACT
The conventional method of extracting minority carrier diffusion lengths from electron beam induced current (EBIC) signals requires that the beam-junction distance be at least twice the diffusion length (2L) of the material. Since this material parameter is yet to be determined, it is difficult to estimate the minimum allowable distance between the beam and the junction. This chapter proposes a new method of extracting the minority carrier diffusion length. This new technique has two advantages over the conventional method. First, an estimation of the value of 2L is not required. The second advantage is that the signal to noise ratios of the EBIC signals obtained using this method are higher than those obtained using the conventional method and therefore will lead to more accurate results. The chapter shows that the semi-normalized surface recombination velocity of the sample can be determined after the minority carrier diffusion length is obtained.
