Light-induced defect creation in hydrogenated amorphous silicon: A detailed examination using junction-capacitance methods

From junction-capacitance measurements we have determined the density, energy distribution, and electronic occupation of light-induced metastable defects near the midgap for a set of nearly intrinsic hydrogenated-amorphous-silicon samples with well-characterized impurity levels. In particular, we have inferred the changes in both neutral and negative dangling bonds for a series of isochronal anneals between the light-soaked state and full-dark-annealed state of each sample. Our results indicate that the dominant defect-creation mechanism is not Si--Si bond breaking, and also indicate the existence of at least two quasi-independent metastable defect-creation processes.