Annealing of Quenched Intrinsic-Type Germanium

Intrinsic germanium specimens with different thicknesses were quenched from temperatures between 700°C and 900°C into ethylene glycol kept at room temperature. Two normal annealing stages, Stage I (≃150°C) and Stage III (≃500°C), and a reverse annealing stage, Stage II (≃300°C) were observed from electrical resistivity measurements at 25°C or at 78 K. Stage I might possibly be attributable to the migration of divacancies with an activation energy of about 0.9 eV to vacancy-clusters formed during quenching. Stage II may result from the migration of donor-type defects with an activation energy of about 1.3 eV. At Stage III, the apparent migration energy increases as the specimen thickness becomes larger. This trend can be accounted for by the dissociation of vacancy-clusters formed during quenching.