Determination of boron and phosphorus concentration in silicon by photoluminescence analysis

A novel method to obtain boron and phosphorus concentration in silicon crystals by photoluminescent (PL) analysis at liquid-helium temperature is reported. The intensity ratio between intrinsic and extrinsic components in the PL spectra reflects the impurity concentration. The tentative calibration curves for boron and phosphorus for our method are obtained by comparison with the results of the resistivity measurement. The detection limit of this method is estimated to be as low as 1×1011 cm−3 for boron and 5×1011 cm−3 for phosphorus. The degree of compensation can be estimated also. The PL method makes it possible to determine nondestructively the concentration of small amount of impurities in a small region of a specimen.