Self-consistent determination of the generation rate from photoconductance measurements

The determination of effective excess carrier lifetimes from photoconductance measurements generally requires knowledge of the absolute generation rate within a sample. Measurements of the generation rate typically involve measurement of the sample absorption spectrum and of the incident light intensity. This letter presents an experimental and analytical method by which both the effective lifetime and the generation rate can be self-consistently determined. The method involves only relative measurements of the generation rate, greatly simplifying the experimental requirements. Good agreement is found experimentally between the results achieved using this method and results from transient photoconductance measurements. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.