Highly photoconductive and photosensitive hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbon alloy films prepared by magnetron sputtering

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.