Hydrogen neutralization of chalcogen double donors in silicon

Hydrogen neutralization of chalcogen (S, Se, and Te) double-donor centers in single-crystal silicon is demonstrated with deep level transient spectroscopy. The deep-donor chalcogen concentration can be reduced by greater than a factor of 100, while in the same samples the phosphorus shallow-donor concentration decreases by only a small percentage. Both electronic levels of the double donors were fully removed by hydrogenation and recovered with an anneal at 500 °C.