Auger lifetimes for excitons bound to neutral donors and acceptors in Si

Abstract The lifetimes of excitons bound to the neutral donors Li, P, and As and neutral acceptors B, Al, Ga, and In in silicon are determined by time‐resolved photoluminescence measurements at 4.2 K and a strong dependence on the binding energy of the donor or acceptor is found. This dependence can be understood assuming a localized phononless Auger‐process to be the main recombination mechanism. A theoretical calculation using approximate wavefunctions is presented and leads to a very good agreement with the experimental results.