AbstractThe dependence of the creation and the annealing of metastable dangling bonds in hydrogenated amorphous silicon on various material parameters will be discussed in the context of a recently proposed model. After a brief review of the kinetic behaviour governing defect creation and annealing in undoped a- Si:H, a number of special cases will be analyzed: the influence of alloying with O, N, C, and Ge, changes introduced by doping and compensation, and the role of mechanical stress. Finally, possibilities to increase the stability of a-Si:H based devices will be examined.
ABSTRACTStudies of r.f. sputter deposited hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) find that the light induced decrease in the dark conductivity and photoconductivity (the Staebler-Wronski effect) is reduced when the r.f. power used during deposition is increased. The slower Staebler-Wronski effect is not due to an increase in the initial defect density in the high r.f. power samples, but may result from either the lower hydrogen content or the smaller optical gap found in these films.
ABSTRACTA model for correlating the observed properties of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) with the underlying hydrogen microstructure is reviewed. The model provides a unified description of defect equilibration, hydrogen evolution, rehydrogenation and hydrogen diffusion measurements.
Physical and chemical mechanisms and role of plasma in the synthesis of hydrogenated amorphous silicon were studied numerically to reveal the key growth processes and, hence, to ensure a higher level of control over the film structure and properties.
Response to ‘‘Critique of (time)1/3kinetics of defect formation in amorphous Si:H and a possible alternative model—Comment on ‘Kinetics of the Staebler–Wronski effect in hydrogenated amorphous silicon’ ’’ [Appl. Phys. Lett.54, 398 (1989)]
