- The sample annealing procedure
If a series of measurements has to be interlaced with an annealing process then at least two different types of scripts are needed: (1) for the measurement/cooling and (2) heating/annealing.
(1). The parameters in the script for the measurement need to be optimised for particular signal of interest. The temperature stabilisation criteria have to be rigorous. Check whether the Data Base, Sample and Material entries are the proper ones. If the cooling bias conditions have to be different than the ones used for the measurements then separate scripts for the measurement and cooling have to be used. In this case the temperature stabilisation criteria in the measurement script need not to be rigorous as much more rigorous criteria in the cooling script assure the proper temperature stability before the measurement starts. In the separate cooling script the file name can be dummy and also the acquisition parameters can be set for a short dummy measurement.
(2). In the heating/annealing script the temperature set point should correspond to the annealing temperature. The stabilisation criteria need not to be rigorous. If the annealing has to be performed with the bias on then set the pulse 1 value equal to the bias value. Set a dummy file name, and the acquisition parameters such that the whole measurement is as long as the annealing time, e.g., sampling rate = 1000, number of samples = 1000, number of scans = 600, will make the 10mins annealing procedure. If the heating and annealing have to be performed at different sample bias conditions then for both of them separate scripts have to be used. If the subsequent annealing stage needs a different temperature set point thus for each of them a different script has to be prepared, otherwise the same script can be reused for each annealing step.
- The Arrhenius-type data analysis (DLTS)
This procedure needs to prepare a separate script for each temperature. The stabilisation criteria have to be rigorous. The difficulty in this sequence of measurements is that the emission rate changes quickly with the temperature so one needs to modify in each script the acquisition parameters, accordingly. It is advised to do some preliminary measurements to have an idea how much the emission rate changes during, say, 5K temperature step, and this gives some idea how much one needs to shorten or prolong the transient to keep the Laplace DLTS peak in a central region of the spectrum. If the Boonton capacitance meter is used usually the peak amplitude becomes underestimated for the emission rates faster than 2000/s. This means that it is not advised to measure the emission rates faster then 5000/s.