On measurement of the thermal diffusivity of moderate and heavily doped semiconductor samples using modulated photothermal infrared radiometry

Highlights: •Accuracy of thermal diffusivity estimation measured using PTR method in doped semiconductors is reported. •Highest precision was found for heavily doped samples. •Precision for moderate doped samples depends on existence of PTR phase maximum. •Influence of sample's properties on PTR phase maximum was discussed. -- Abstract: In this work, the accuracy of the thermal diffusivity estimation in moderately and heavily doped semiconductor samples using the modulated photothermal infrared radiometry is investigated. The studies were carried out on heavily doped Si and GaAs wafers, and on moderately doped Si and recently studied GaAs and CdSe samples. It is shown, that depending on the infrared properties of the semiconductor sample, the modulated photothermal infrared radiometry signal can yield information about thermal diffusivity, (effective) infrared absorption coefficient and electronic transport parameters (recombination lifetime, carrier diffusivity and surface recombination velocities). For the heavily doped samples, the modulated photothermal infrared radiometry signal consists only of the thermal response yielding information about the (effective) infrared absorption coefficient and thermal diffusivity. The relative expanded uncertainty with 0.95 level of confidence U_r of estimating the thermal diffusivity in this case is about U_r = 0.05. For moderately doped samples the modulated photothermal infrared radiometry signal consists of the thermal and of the photocarrier response. The relative expanded uncertainty with 0.95 level of confidence U_r of estimating the thermal diffusivity in this case varies between about U_r = 0.10 and about U_r = 0.30, depending on the existence of the maximum in the signal phase, but information about the electronic transport properties is derived. It is shown that not only infrared properties have the influence on the accuracy in estimating the thermal diffusivity of moderate doped semiconductor samples, but also the thermal, geometrical (thickness) and carrier recombination properties can play an important role.