New Development in the Study of Amorphous Silicon Hydrogen Alloys: The Story of O

We present results of dark-conductivity, photoconductivity, photoluminescence, and optical-absorption experiments on films of sputtered oxygenated amorphous-silicon-hydrogen alloys (a-Si_1-xHₓ). Films with oxygen (O) are shown to behave much more like glow-discharge-produced a-Si_1-xHₓ than do O-free films. O is found to enter the amorphous matrix predominantly in an Si-O-Si bridging configuration. Defects associated with the presence of H are shown to be likely centers for radiative recombination, while both O and H may be associated with locally deformable defects.