Metastable States in Amorphous Chalcogenide Semiconductors

ISBN-13: 9783642027444 / Angielski / Twarda / 2009 / 136 str.

Victor I. Mikla

Opis

This monographdeals with metastable states in amorphoussemiconductors ma- rials which lack long-range periodicity in the atoms positions, which are in th- modynamic nonequilibrium and which, in addition, have several metastable states. Thesestates giverise tovariouspropertiesandeffects namelya widerangeofp- toinduced changes and high photosensitivity and X-ray sensitivity that are unique among solid-state semiconductors.Historically, amorphousselenium and seleni- based materials have played an important role in physics and technology, and they continue to do so. In these materials there exist inherent intermediate (metastable) states, structural and electronic in origin, which lead to interesting properties and effects different from those of their crystalline counterparts. In this volume, the metastable states and related effects are investigated in depth against the background of a detailed consideration of local atomic and electronic structure, and taking into account a wide range of light-induced effects. Although the rst publications on amorphous semiconductors date back to the early 1970s, studies of metastable states in these materials had not been analyzed systematically up to now, which led to erroneous ideas, even among specialists. In the present book, experimental investigations of metastable states are reported in detail for elemental selenium and selenium-based materials."

Spis treści

Effect of Thermal Evaporation Conditions on Structure and Structural Changes in Amorphous Arsenic Sulfides.- Optical Absorption and Structural Transformations in Arsenic Selenide Films.- Trap Level Spectroscopy in Amorphous Selenium-Based Semiconductors.- Photoinduced Effects on Electronic Metastable States.- Deep Level Spectroscopy in Selenium-Rich Amorphous Semiconductors.- Recombination Process and Non-Isothermal Relaxation of Low-Temperature Photoinduced Effects.- Electronic Properties of Materials with Gross Permanent Photoinduced Changes: Cu–As–Se Glasses.- Carrier Transport in Selenium-Based Amorphous Multilayer Structures.- Spectroscopic Studies of Gap States and Laser-Induced Structural Transformations in Selenium-Based Arsenic-Free Amorphous Semiconductors: Sb x Se1?x Alloys.

Blurb

This book addresses an interesting and technologically important class of materials, the amorphous chalcogenide semiconductors. Experimental results on the structural and electronic metastable states in Se-rich chalcogenides are presented. Special attention is paid to the states in the mobility gap and their sensitivity to various factors such as irradiation, annealing and composition. Photoinduced changes of structure and physical properties are also considered and structural transformation at photocrystallization is studied in detail. Finally, the authors discuss potential applications of the observed effects in xerography, digital radiography and for optical data storage.