  A method of the mid-IR-laser microscopy has been proposed for the
investigation of the large-scale electrically and recombination active defects
in semiconductors and non-destructive inspection of semiconductor materials and
structures in the industries of microelectronics and photovoltaics. The basis
for this development was laid with a wide cycle of the investigations on the
low-angle mid-IR-light scattering in semiconductors. The essence of the
technical idea was to apply the dark-field method for spatial filtering of the
scattered light in the scanning mid-IR-laser microscope. This approach enabled
the visualization of large-scale electrically active defects which are the
regions enriched with ionized electrically active centers. The photoexcitation
of excess carriers within a small volume located in the probe mid-IR-laser beam
enabled the visualization of the large-scale recombination-active defects like
those revealed in the optical or electron beam induced current methods. Both
these methods of the scanning mid-IR-laser microscopy are now introduced in
detail in the present paper as well as a summary of techniques used in the
standard method of the lowangle mid-IR-light scattering itself. Besides the
techniques for direct observations, methods for analyses of the defect
composition associated with the mid-IR-laser microscopy are also discussed in
the paper.
