Abstract
Undoped hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbon alloy thin films were prepared by the magnetron sputtering of silicon in a gas mixture of methane argon. It is found that the photoconductivities of the films with carbon concentration above 15% are one order of magnitude or more larger than the films prepared by the glow discharge decomposition of silane-methane gas mixture reported by other groups before now. Moreover, the photosensitivities of these films are larger than those of the glow discharge films, as a result of small dark conductivities of the former compared with those of the latter.