TY - JOUR
T1 - Entropy-driven metastabilities in defects in semiconductors
AU - Hamilton, Bruce
AU - Peaker, Anthony R.
AU - Pantelides, Sokrates T.
PY - 1988/1/1
Y1 - 1988/1/1
N2 - Several defects are known to have metastable configurations that can be accessed by charge-state change, optical excitation, or heating followed by rapid cooling. Typically, each configuration is stable over a broad temperature range and can be studied by spectroscopic techniques. In this Letter, we report the observation of a novel metastability: A configuration change occurs spontaneously and abruptly at a critical temperature, giving rise to a discontinuous, deep-level transient spectrum. We propose that this phenomenon is a manifestation of entropy variations in the configurational space.
AB - Several defects are known to have metastable configurations that can be accessed by charge-state change, optical excitation, or heating followed by rapid cooling. Typically, each configuration is stable over a broad temperature range and can be studied by spectroscopic techniques. In this Letter, we report the observation of a novel metastability: A configuration change occurs spontaneously and abruptly at a critical temperature, giving rise to a discontinuous, deep-level transient spectrum. We propose that this phenomenon is a manifestation of entropy variations in the configurational space.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=4243402255&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.61.1627
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.61.1627
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:4243402255
SN - 0031-9007
VL - 61
SP - 1627
EP - 1630
JO - Physical Review Letters
JF - Physical Review Letters
IS - 14
ER -