A NEW METHOD FOR THE DETECTION OF HYDROGEN SPILLOVER

In this work, a new method is used to study the spillover of hydrogen from a catalytic metal onto an insulator. The method makes use of the so-called scanning light pulse technique (SLPT) and is applied to pall adium gate silicon dioxide-silicon capacitors with the substrate being p-doped. It is concluded that there exist two types of spillover spec ies. The spilt over hydrogen changes the conductance of the SiO2 surfa ce, making it possible to charge the surface. The results for p-type s ilicon suggest that the induced surface charge must be positive. The r esults of SLPT and inversion capacitance measurements obtained on simi lar samples during hydrogen exposure are compared.