Determination of Band Discontinuity in Amorphous Silicon Heterojunctions

Abstract
A new procedure of determining the band offset in semiconductor heterojunctions has been developed. The valence band spectra for ultrathin amorphous silicon nitride (a-Si1-x N x :H) or silicon carbide (a-Si1-x C x :H) deposited on hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) have been measured by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. It is demonstrated that the empirical deconvolution of measured spectra yields the valence band discontinuity in a-Si1-x N x :H/a-Si:H and a-Si1-x C x :H/a-Si:H systems.