Defect dynamics and the properties of amorphous silicon

Abstract

It is shown that self-mobility of intrinsic defects is essential in describing the reactions that underlie a wide assortment of phenomena in a-Si. A set of basic reactions involving the primitive intrinsic defects (dangling and floating bonds), hydrogen, and dopant impurities are capable of describing all the observed phenomena that involve atomic rearrangements, e.g., defect creation and annealing, hydrogenation, hydrogen diffusion and evolution, coordination changes underlying doping, etc. Interconversion between the two primitive intrinsic defects leads to processes that are unique to the amorphous state.