Influence of formation conditions of silicon diodes on their reverse currents

In this work, a study was made of the influence of silicon diode manufacturing technology on the emergence of generation and recombination centers. The electrical characteristics of $p$–$n$ junctions formed in different ways on $n$-type silicon substrates were compared: a) the $p$-type layer was created by the diffusion method; b) the $p$-type layer was formed by ion implantation into an epitaxial $n$-layer preliminarily grown on the substrate; c) two $n$- and $p$-type epitaxial layers were successively deposited on the substrate. It has been established that for diodes based on a double epitaxial layer, the direct and reverse current-voltage characteristics (CVC) are due to the diffusion mechanism, and the structures themselves have a low concentration of recombination centers. At the same time, in diodes based on the diffusion method and ion implantation, the CVCs are due to the generation-recombination mechanism. With reverse bias, electron-phonon processes play a significant role in the formation of the CVC, and with forward bias, carrier recombination in the region of the space charge of the $p$–$n$ junction. The concentrations and energies of recombination centers have been determined.