Determination of doping density in GaAs semiconductor by wavelength-dependent photoacoustic spectroscopy

The wavelength dependence of the photoacoustic signal for n-type GaAs semiconductors in the region of the band-gap energies was investigated. The significant changes in the phase and amplitude of the photoacoustic signal near the band-gap absorption wavelengths were observed to occur when the Si-doping densities in GaAs were varied. Particularly, the first derivatives of the photoacoustic phase vs. wavelength graphs were evaluated and fitted with single Gaussian functions. The peak centers and the widths of the Gaussian curves clearly showed linear relationships with the log values of the Si-doping densities in n-type GaAs semiconductors. It is proposed that the wavelength-dependent PA spectroscopy can be used as a simple and nondestructive method for measuring the doping densities in bulk semiconductors.