Dislocation-related luminescence in Si was analyzed using time-resolved techniques. A set of samples exhibiting different spectral features in the range of the D1 band was prepared by plastic deformation and subsequent thermal treatment. For all samples the sequence of time constants texc < tD4 < tD1 < tD2 was observed where texc, tD4, tD1, and tD2 denote the time decay constants for the TO phonon replica of the Si bound exciton and D4, D1 and D2 dislocation-related luminescence bands, respectively. It should be noted that the relation between decay times of the D1 and D2 bands remained same for all sub-bands in the D1 family. The results implied that transitions of similar nature were responsible for the bands. On the other hand, the lack of correlation between D1/D2 decay times and contamination levels suggested that intrinsic properties of dislocations were responsible for the corresponding transitions. This observation was analyzed in comparison with previous results and a model of recombination between two shallow and one deep level for D1/D2 bands was proposed. Differences in decay times were attributed to different spatial separation of shallow traps from a common deep trap.

Time-Resolved Measurements of Dislocation-Related Photoluminescence Bands in Silicon. E.A.Steinman, A.J.Kenyon, A.N.Tereshchenko: Physica Status Solidi C, 2009, 6[8], 1811-6