Temperature-Dependent Charge Transport in USD-Grown High-Purity Germanium: Interplay Between Freeze-Out and Multi-Scattering Mechanisms
We report temperature-dependent charge transport measurements in p-type high-resistivity germanium crystals grown at the University of South Dakota. Hall-effect and four-probe resistivity measurements were performed on five planar samples over the temperature range of 2-300 K. The apparent Hall mobility exceeds 10$^6$ cm$^2$ V$^{-1}$ s${^-1}$ at cryogenic temperatures and decreases systematically with increasing temperature, while the effective Hall carrier concentration exhibits strong carrier freeze-out behavior at low temperatures. The combined evolution of Hall mobility, effective Hall carrier concentration, and resistivity reveals distinct transport regimes associated with carrier freeze-out, extrinsic conduction, and phonon-limited scattering. The transport behavior is interpreted using a Matthiessens-rule-inspired phenomenological mobility model motivated by the combined influence of ionized impurity, neutral impurity, and acoustic phonon scattering. Variations among samples are correlated with differences in effective Hall carrier concentration and transport behavior. These measurements establish a transport baseline for USD-grown high-resistivity germanium crystals and provide guidance for future material optimization toward detector-grade high-purity germanium for low-background rare-event detector applications.