Defects in semiconductors
Date
2024-11-20
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Journal of Applied Physics
Abstract
Defects are crucial to understanding semiconductor materials and designing semiconductor-based devices. In using the term “defects,” we include not only native point defects (such as vacancies and interstitials), but also dopant impurities, unintentional contaminants, and complexes between these species. While some defects can lead to detrimental nonradiative recombination and carrier trapping, other defects can be used to provide free carriers that are necessary for the design of transistors, light-emitting devices, and solar cells. Since the advent of semiconductors, a significant amount of research has focused on how to deduce and control the behavior of these defects. While traditional materials (such as silicon, germanium, and gallium arsenide) continue to present challenges in terms of understanding defects, a surge of interest in power electronics has motivated the study of newer classes of materials such as two-dimensional semiconductors and wide-bandgap nitrides and oxides. Growing interest in this area has sustained the relevance of longstanding international conferences such as the International Conference on Defects in Semiconductors.1
As sources of electrical, optical, magnetic, and vibrational signals, defects in semiconductors provide an excellent testing ground for both theory and experiment. This Special Topic brings together contributions from researchers with wide-ranging expertise in the field of defects in semiconductors, documenting advances in our understanding of established materials like silicon carbide and gallium arsenide, but also includes progress in promising new materials, such as the II-IV-VI ternary compounds and ultrawide-bandgap oxides. While showcasing the latest breakthroughs in defects in semiconductors, we also wish to acknowledge the passing of our dear colleagues Audrius Alkauskas2 and Wladyslaw Walukiewicz,3 both of whom made fundamental contributions to this field.
Description
This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and AIP Publishing. This article appeared in Cyrus E. Dreyer, Anderson Janotti, John L. Lyons, Darshana Wickramaratne; Defects in semiconductors. J. Appl. Phys. 21 November 2024; 136 (19): 190401. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0244142 and may be found at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0244142.
© 2024 Author(s). Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing.
This article will be embargoed until 11/20/2025.
Keywords
Citation
Cyrus E. Dreyer, Anderson Janotti, John L. Lyons, Darshana Wickramaratne; Defects in semiconductors. J. Appl. Phys. 21 November 2024; 136 (19): 190401. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0244142