Electronic transport and metastabilities in P-doped a-Si:H

Effect of thermal and light induced metastabilities on conductivity (sigma) and thermopower (S) in phosphorus doped a-Si:H films has been studied. It has been found that although both conductivity and thermopower show a change upon fast quenching, the function Q = ln sigma- eS/k does not change. This suggests that quenching results in a new frozen-in structure, in which the position of the Fermi level is changed, but there is no change in the potential fluctuations. No measurable effect of light soaking is observed in our films. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.