In the studies of semiconductor, the recombination of holes and electrons plays an important role. It has been found that the lifetime of minority carriers in germanium depends on a structure-sensitive property of the material. The recombination process takes place through the medium of imperfectibilities of some sort in the crystal. The statistics of the recombination of holes and electrons in semiconductors was analyzed on the basis of a model in which the recombination occurs through the mechanism of trapping.
The basic aspects of the recombination of excess carriers in germanium and silicon are now familiar, and have been recently treated in a number of review articles. The minority carrier lifetime measurement to detect the radiation damage being a delicate process, the effect of irradiation on lifetime has been studied by several investigators. The studies on the annealing of defects produced by irradiation were discussed in our previous papers. We are also going to set about studying minority carrier lifetime of the semiconductor affected by irradiation. In this paper the basic aspects of the recombination of minority carriers in n-type germanium are treated.