DEPENDENCE OF THE SATURATED LIGHT-INDUCED DEFECT DENSITY ON MACROSCOPIC PROPERTIES OF HYDROGENATED AMORPHOUS-SILICON

We report a study of the saturated light-induced defect density N s,sat in 37 hydrogenated (and in part fluorinated) amorphous silicon [a-Si:H(F)] films grown in six different reactors under widely different conditions. Ns,sat was attained by exposing the films to light from a krypton ion laser (λ=647.1 nm). Ns,sat is determined by the constant photocurrent method and lies between 5×1016 and 2×1017 cm-3. Ns,sat drops with decreasing optical gap Eopt and hydrogen content cH, but is not correlated with the initial defect density Ns,ann or with the Urbach tail energy Eu. We discuss our results within the framework of existing models for light-induced defects.