Gap states in hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon grown by glow discharge technique

Abstract

The gap state distribution in n-type hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si:H) films deposited by the glow discharge method is determined using deep level transient spectroscopy. The spectra obtained for μc-Si:H films, when compared with those observed in n-type a-Si:H deposited by the same technique, appear to be vastly different and clearly indicate four distinct defect levels. On the other hand the peaks obtained are also not as sharp as those normally observed in crystalline silicon. These observations are important to understand the nature of defects in such material systems with very small grain size.