The annealing behavior of light-induced defects in <i>a</i>-Si:H

Abstract

An a-Si:H sample was soaked by AM1 light at 300 K (state B1) and 100 K (state B2), respectively. An annealing activation energy of 1.2 eV was found for the metastable subband-gap absorption. However, for the recovery of the mobility-lifetime product, μτ, an activation energy of 0.9 eV was found for both states B1 and B2. The capture cross section of the recombination centers was estimated. It is suggested that the degradation in the μτ product is due to the creation of new recombination centers near the dark Fermi level with at least an eight times larger capture cross section than that of neutral dangling bonds.