The influence of parasitic effects on injection-level-dependent lifetime data

A circuit simulation approach is employed to investigate the influence of various parasitic effects on injection-level-dependent lifetime data of samples containing p-n junctions. Simulations of the influence of shunts, localized recombination, edge recombination, and a combination of these on lifetime data are presented. The simulation shows that the nature of the parasitic effects can be qualitatively identified due to their different lifetime behaviors at various injection levels. It is demonstrated that the parasitic effects start to dominate, the lifetime data at injection levels < 10(15) cm(-3), and the lifetime behavior can look similar to Shockley-Read-Hall recombination in some cases. A range of case studies with experimental data and data fitting are presented. The case studies show that parasitic effects can interfere with lifetime-based experiments. In some cases, the understanding of the influence of parasitic effects leads to a reinterpretation of the lifetime behavior of the test devices.