Conduction in the relaxation regime

The conduction behavior of ideal relaxation semiconductors is studied in the general case with trapping included. The investigation of the range of validity of the relaxation concept leads to a more restricted defining condition for the relaxation regime. With increasing deviations from the ideal relaxation regime, the conduction approaches gradually the well-known behavior of conventional (lifetime) semiconductors. In particular, it is shown that the trapping conditions required for "recombinative space-charge injection" are incompatible with thermodynamic steady-state requirements. © 1975 The American Physical Society.