Theoretical study of time-resolved luminescence in semiconductors. I. Decay from the steady state

Time-resolved luminescence (TRL) is a non-destructive, non-invasive, and contactless characterization method. We studied TRL decay on semiconductor layers and thin film homostructures after a steady state illumination by simulation with Synopsys TCAD (R) and by analytical approximate solution of the appropriate equations. First, we show that the luminescence decay time in general equals the minority carrier lifetime only for a homogeneous and time-independent carrier lifetime. Then, we investigate the influence of photon recycling, injection level, charge carrier diffusion, defects in the bulk and at the surfaces, as well as space charge on the TRL decay separately by quasi one-dimensional simulations of semiconductor layers and semiconductor homostructures. We further study the influence of sample non-homogeneity as may be found in polycrystalline semiconductors. We show how carrier lifetime can be extracted from the TRL transients and how the samples can be characterized by excitation dependent measurements in the open circuit case. We can explain some effects found in luminescence experiments, like a decrease of the decay time with an increasing excitation, a maximum in the decay time due to saturated bulk-defects and curved luminescence transients due to high injections or sample inhomogeneities. Furthermore, we are focussing on the question, how single layers within a semiconductor stack can be characterized. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.