Time-domain measurement of spin-dependent recombination in microcrystalline silicon

Time-domain measurement of spin-dependent recombination (TSR) is based on the transient measurement of spin-dependent recombination after an intensive, short microwave pulse. The method allows an accurate measurement of the recombination and dissociation probabilities of recombining charge carrier pairs and gives quantitative insight into the recombination dynamics in semiconductors. A first application of TSR on the tunneling recombination between bandtail states and dangling bonds (db) in microcrystalline silicon are presented. We will discuss the TSR method in detail and show that we can determine the temperature dependence of the hopping rate of photo-excited charge carriers among bandtail states. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.