Width of the dislocation energy band in germanium

By U–I measurements on Au-n-Ge deformed diodes the most effective energy level for generation-recombination of the dislocation band is found to lie at 0.18 eV from the top of the valence band in Ge. Therefore from the knowledge of the position of the neutral level in the dislocation band, a band width of about 0.18 eV is obtained, in agreement with a tight binding calculation. It is also confirmed that in the deformed Ge the inverse of the effective lifetime of the minority carriers is proportional to the edge dislocation density by a factor σp0 that is found to be 3.7 × 10−4 cm2 s−1.