Electron beam energy and Ge nanocrystal size effects on the minority carrier diffusion length measured by the nano-electron beam induced current technique

The near-field electron beam induced current technique is used to study the minority carrier effective diffusion length versus electron beam energy on structures containing spherical Ge nanocrystals (NCs) with diameters of 50 nm and 70 nm formed by a two step dewetting/nucleation process. For both nanocrystal sizes, the effective diffusion length increases with the electron beam energy and then decreases from a threshold energy, which depends on the nanocrystal size. The effective diffusion length is smaller at low energy for NCs of larger size because of their larger surface recombination velocity, due to a better charge trapping efficiency.