Effect of photoenhanced minority carriers in metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitor studied by scanning capacitance microscopy

A scanning capacitance microscope was used to study the photoenhanced minority-carrier contribution to the capacitance of the metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) capacitor at high frequencies. When a light is induced over the semiconductor surface, electron-hole pairs are generated and recombined. This steady-state generation-recombination process yields the temporary source of minority carriers, and the inversion layer underneath the oxide layer can respond to very fast-varying ac bias. We measured the differential capacitance (dC/dV) of the MOS capacitor under various light intensities, and observed a peak at the inversion region where the amplitude increased as the irradiation intensity increased. By integrating dC/dV with respect to V, we obtained C–V curves in which the capacitance of the depletion region recovered its value up to that of the accumulation region as the light intensity increased. We also observed that the C–V curves shifted in one direction under irradiation which we believe is due to the...