Influence of Highly Conductive Disordered Regions on Kinetics of Radiation Defects Annealing in n-Si Crystals Irradiated with High-Energy Protons

Single crystals of n-type Si grown by the zone melting method with an electron concentration of n=6×10¹³ cm⁻³ were studied. The samples were irradiated with 25 MeV protons at room temperature (300 K). Isochronous annealing of the irradiated crystals was carried out in the temperature range Tₐₙₙ=110–500°C. The investigated samples were studied using the Hall effect method in the temperature range 77–300 K. In n-Si samples irradiated with high-energy particles, the observed non-monotonic variation in electron concentration n as a function of measurement temperature T is explained by changes in the ionization energies of point radiation defects (RDs) due to the influence of electrostatic interaction energy εₛ between different RDs. The oscillatory dependence of the Hall mobility μ_H on annealing temperature, as well as the non-monotonic behavior of the μ_H(T) curves, is attributed to the existence of highly conductive disordered regions (DRs) in the irradiated n-Si crystals, the formation of an electric field at the interface between the highly conductive DRs and the crystal matrix, and the non-monotonic variation of the electric potential U of the highly conductive DRs depending on their charge state. The highly conductive DRs are completely annealed out in the temperature range Tₐₙₙ=380–500°C. The work highlights the features of the variation in the concentration and mobility of the majority charge carriers in n-type silicon crystals irradiated with high-energy protons during isochronous annealing.