TEMPERATURE-DEPENDENCE OF CREATION AND ANNEALING OF LIGHT-INDUCED METASTABLE DEFECTS IN A-SI-H

Metastable defects can be created by light exposure in n-type, p-type, or undoped hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) with comparable ef ficiency at temperatures between 4.2K and 300K. The defect creation me chanism is not thermally activated. In undoped samples the relative in crease in defect concentration N-D depends on exposure time t(e) as t( e)(m) with 0.3 less than or equal to m less than or equal to 0.4 for a ll T. Saturation was not achieved after exposure of undoped a-Si:H for 160h at 20K at a generation rate of G = 4 x 10(21)cm(-3)s(-1). In n-t ype samples saturation begins after 2h of exposure.