Effect of dangling-bond density on luminescence in tritiated amorphous silicon

Self-luminescence in tritiated amorphous silicon is observed. The substitution of tritium for hydrogen in a hydrogenated semiconductor provides a powerful tool for the study of dangling bonds. The radioactive decay of tritium leads to an increase in the dangling-bond concentration in the material of several orders of magnitude over a period of a few weeks with little other modification in the structure of the material. We report here results of a study of photoluminescence as a function of time in tritiated amorphous silicon. An analysis of the data in terms of a simple theoretical model in which dangling bonds are treated as nonradiative recombination centers yields a capture radius of 32 Å for the D0 defect.