Doping effects of group III and group V elements in unhydrogenated neon-sputtered amorphous silicon

Abstract

Amorphous silicon was doped p and n type by co-sputtering with group III and group V elements. Pure neon, instead of the conventionally used ArH 2 mixture, was used as the sputtering gas. The room temperature conductivity was varied over nine orders of magnitude, with a corresponding shift in the Fermi level of about 1.2 eV in the mobility gap, without a significant change in the optical gap. Comparison of the results with those of other techniques suggests that the material has a relatively low density of defect states and a reasonable doping efficiency can be achieved. Furthermore, p-n junctions made of this material have potential semiconductor applications.