Applicability of Shockley-Read-Hall Theory for Interface States

Even though the Shockley Read Hall (SRH) model neglects atomic reconfiguration upon charge capture and emission, it has been successfully used for decades to describe the dynamics of interface states. This is quite in contrast to oxide bulk defects, where this omission results in serious modeling errors. Using ab initio models of dangling bonds at a model SiO2/Si interface together with non-radiative multi-phonon theory, we explore why the SRH model gives excellent approximation in many cases and where its limits are.