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Lifetime Regime in the Electrically-Detected Transient Grating Method Applied to Amorphous and Microcrystalline Silicon Films

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2011

P. Sanguino ,
M. Niehus ,
S. Koynov ,
P. Brogueira ,
R. Schwarz ,
J.P. Conde ,
V. Chu  and
E.A. Schiff
P. Sanguino
Affiliation:
Physics Department, Instituto Superior Técnico, IST, Lisboa, Portugal
M. Niehus
Affiliation:
Physics Department, Instituto Superior Técnico, IST, Lisboa, Portugal
S. Koynov
Affiliation:
Physics Department, Instituto Superior Técnico, IST, Lisboa, Portugal
P. Brogueira
Affiliation:
Physics Department, Instituto Superior Técnico, IST, Lisboa, Portugal
R. Schwarz
Affiliation:
Physics Department, Instituto Superior Técnico, IST, Lisboa, Portugal
J.P. Conde
Affiliation:
Departament of Materials Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, IST, Lisboa, Portugal
V. Chu
Affiliation:
INESC Microsystems and Nanotechnologies, Lisbon, Portugal
E.A. Schiff
Affiliation:
Physics Department, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, U.S.A.
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Abstract

The minority-carrier diffusion length in thin silicon films can be extracted from the electrically-detected transient grating method, EDTG, by a simple ambipolar analysis only in the case of lifetime dominated carrier transport. If the dielectric relaxation time, τdiel, is larger than the photocarrier response time, τR, then unexpected negative transient signals can appear in the EDTG result. Thin silicon films deposited by hot-wire chemical vapor deposition (HWCVD) near the amorphous-to-microcrystalline transition, where τR varies over a large range, appeared to be ideal candidates to study the interplay between carrier recombination and dielectric response. By modifying the ambipolar description to allow for a time-dependent carrier grating build-up and decay we can obtain a good agreement between analytical calculation and experimental results.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 715: Symposium A – Amorphous and Heterogeneous Silicon-Based Films-2002 , 2002 , A20.2
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2002

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References

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