Impurity avalanche breakdown in n-type InP layers
Impurity avalanche breakdown in InP layers prepared by LPE has been studied in detail using voltage-controlled and current-controlled characteristics measured at liquid helium temperature. Scholl's model of the first-order nonequilibrium phase transition in a two-level system was found to be adequate to describe the main experimental results. In contrast to GaAs, the assumption of the existence of an additional shallow donor level was necessary for the explanation of step-like breakdown.