Point Defects in Group IV Semiconductors

Book excerpt: A self-consistent model of point defects requires a reliable connection with the experimentally deduced structural, spectroscopic and thermodynamic properties of the defect centres, to allow their unambiguous identification. This book focuses on the properties of defects in group IV semiconductors and seeks to clarify whether full knowledge of their chemical nature can account for several problems encountered in practice. It is shown how difficult the fulfilment of self-consistency conditions can be, even today, after more than four decades of dedicated research work, especially in the case of compound semiconductors, such as SiC, but also in the apparently simple cases of silicon and germanium. The reason for this is that the available microscopic models do not yet account for defect interactions in real solids.