Conduction-Band Density of States in Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon Determined by Inverse Photoemission

Abstract

The first direct determination of the conduction band of hydrogenated amorphous silicon has been performed by means of x-ray inverse photoemission. We found a feature 1.2-4 eV above the Fermi level which may be associated, on the basis of its annealing behavior and energy position, with the Si-H antibonding orbital. Comparison with data on crystalline silicon clearly shows that the amorphous-silicon conduction-band density of states does not exhibit critical-point structures.