Surface photovoltage method for the quality control of silicon epitaxial layers on sapphire

The surface photovoltage method is used to study "silicon-on-sapphire" epitaxial layers with a thickness of 0.3–0.6 μm, which are used to fabricate p-channel MOS (metal—oxide-semiconductor) transistors with improved radiation hardness. It is shown that the manner in which the photoconductivity of the epitaxial layer decays after the end of a light pulse generated by a light-emitting diode (wavelength ∼400 nm) strongly depends on the density of structural defects in the bulk of the structure. This enables control over how a "silicon-on-sapphire" structure is formed to provide the manufacturing of MOS structures with optimal operating characteristics