Very low densities of localized states at the Fermi level in hydrogenated polymorphous silicon from capacitance and space-charge-limited current measurements

Cabarrocas, P. R. I.

doi:10.1063/1.125348

research article

Very low densities of localized states at the Fermi level in hydrogenated polymorphous silicon from capacitance and space-charge-limited current measurements

Kleider, J. P.

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Longeaud, C.

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Gauthier, M.

1999

Applied Physics Letters

The density of states at the Fermi level N(E-F) has been measured on hydrogenated polymorphous (pm-Si:H) silicon samples using both capacitance measurements on Schottky barriers and space-charge-limited current measurements on n(+)/i/n(+) structures. From both techniques, N(E-F) values of 7-8 x 10(14) cm(-3) eV(-1) have been obtained, which is significantly lower than reported in the literature for hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H). Such values demonstrate that pm-Si:H is a very low defect density material which should be able to replace a-Si:H in the field of applications like photovoltaics. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)02747-3].