Electronic properties of a-Si:H deposited with hydrogen or helium dilution

We have applied the Drive-Level Capacitance Profiling (DLCP) method to n-i-p a-Si:H diodes to characterize the mid-gap defect densities in the i layer. Our results show that there are no significant changes in the drive-level densities, N_dl, in n-i-p diodes and p⁺-i-m as well as n-i-m Schottky diodes, which indicates that DLCP can directly provide reliable energy distribution and spatial distribution of the mid-gap defects in the n-i-p device. We have found that the ratio of N_dl to N_D^*, the ionized defect density determined by hole onset measurement, is changed with the deposition conditions; it is 3 for standard samples, 2 for helium diluted samples and 6 for hydrogen diluted samples. These results indicate that there may be different defect distributions in these materials, which suggest the ratio of charged (D^-) density to the neutral defect (D⁰) density may be altered when growth conditions are varied.