Local avalanche breakdowns in semiconductor GaAsP diodes

Currently, the occurrence of microplasma regions in PN junctions is attributed to crystal lattice imperfections. As a rule, these regions feature lower strong-field avalanche ionization breakdown voltages than other homogeneous junction regions. The existence of such regions may lead to local avalanche breakdowns occurring in reverse-biased PN junctions at certain voltages. Macroscopically, these breakdowns are manifested as microplasma noise. Studying the current conductivity bi-stable mechanism thus may be used as an efficient tool to evaluate the PN junction inhomogeneity.