Electron and hole dynamics in amorphous silicon

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Abstract
Charge carrier dynamics in doped and undoped hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) films is studied by contactless time-resolved photoconductivity measurements. Subband-gap and above band-gap excitation are used to generate excess mobile charge carriers. In undoped a-Si:H the electron decay at charge carrier concentrations larger than 1016 cm−3 is mainly due to an electron-hole recombination which is controlled by hole dispersion. n doping introduces hole traps which increase the effective electron lifetime drastically as they quench this electron-hole recombination channel. At high n-doping levels the electron decay becomes faster due to an increase of the concentration of recombination centers upon doping. In lightly doped p-type samples the transient photoconductivity reflects the interaction of mobile holes with states in the valence-band tail. In heavily doped p- and n-type films the majority carriers decay by a second-order recombination process with trapped minority charge carriers. The transport parameters deduced agree with time-of-flight data.