The observation of defect metastability in heavily damaged material was reported. An ion-damaged buried layer was embedded in a Schottky diode, and junction capacitance transient measurements were used to monitor charge relaxation following trap-filling pulses. The defect energy was observed to deepen progressively upon carrier capture, and the emission rate of carriers from any relaxed state was almost independent of temperature. It was proposed that the phenomena could be understood in terms of large entropy changes acting as the driving force for relaxation. The results constituted data on the metastability of small defect clusters in ion-damaged material.

Evidence of Metastability with Athermal Ionization from Defect Clusters in Ion-Damaged Silicon. P.K.Giri, N.Mohapatra: Physical Review B, 2000, 62[24], 16561-5