QUANTUM EFFICIENCIES GREATER THAN UNITY - A COMPUTER STUDY OF A PHOTOGATING EFFECT IN AMORPHOUS-SILICON P-I-N DEVICES

We report a new effect, which we call photogating, that can be present in amorphous Si-based p-i-n structures under certain illumination conditions. This phenomenon feeds photogenerated carriers created by a bias light beam of one wavelength into the current response to a second probe light beam of a different wavelength. We demonstrate that this phenomena can lead to measured quantum efficiencies greater than unity. Our computer simulations show that this new effect owes its origins to trapped charge and to the condition that there is a low field region in the front of the structure in the presence of certain bias light.