Reverse biased P-N junction noise in GaAsP diodes with avalanche breakdown induced microplasmas

Random two-level or multiple-level current impulses may occur in electronic devices containing reverse biased p-n junctions in a certain operating mode. These impulses are usually rectangular, featuring constant amplitude, random pulse width and pulse origin time points. This phenomenon is generally ascribed to local avalanche breakdowns originating in p-n junction defect regions called microplasma regions. Based on experiment results, a two-state model of stochastic generation-recombination process has been elaborated for the two-level impulse noise allowing to derive some statistical characteristics of this process. It can be shown that the distribution of the probability density w(tau(0)) of the impulse separation tau(0) and the probability density w(tau(1)) of the impulse width tau(1) have exponential courses. The power spectral density of the noise current is of a G-R process type and depends on the particular microplasma properties. From the viewpoint of noise diagnostics, the most important features are the spectral density S-u and noise current I-N versus reverse current I-R plots, because each local extreme of these plots corresponds to an active microplasma region. Thus obtained results may be used for p-n junction non-destructive diagnostics and quality assessment.