On the sensitivity of the EBIC technique as applied to defect investigations in silicon

Estimations of the sensitivity of the steady-state EBIC method to the detection of recombination centres are made for the cases of point-like and line-shaped defects. The estimations are compared to both the authors's experimental findings and results from the literature and come out to be in good correspondence with them: In usual EBIC circuitry, only dislocations having impurity atmospheres with some content of deep centres are detectable. Investigation of recombination centres related to „clean”︁ dislocations, on the other hand, requires a more sensitive detection circuitry (e.g. lock-in technique). The given formulaes may also be used for semi-quantitative analysis of the EBIC contrast.