Phosphorus Versus Arsenic: Role of the Photodiode Doping Element in CMOS Image Sensor Radiation-Induced Dark Current and Random Telegraph Signal

This work investigates the role of the phosphorus doping element in the radiation-induced dark current in a CMOS image sensor (CIS) photodiode. The neutron and proton irradiations on shallow arsenic-based photodiode CISs and deep phosphorus-based photodiodes CISs have been performed. The results highlight the applicability of the same dark current increase and random telegraph signal (RTS) models. Already verified on other photodiode structures, these results further extend the universality of these analytic tools. Moreover, it emphasizes that the phosphorus element does not play a significant role either in the radiation-induced dark current increase or in the dark current RTS. The results on RTS after annealing reveal the same recovery dynamic than those already observed in irradiated image sensors, suggesting that the phosphorus element does not play a significant role after annealing. Therefore, this work is a piece of experimental evidence supporting the idea that RTS induced by displacement damage is principally due to defect clusters mainly constituted of intrinsic silicon defects such as clusters of vacancies and interstitials.