Growth temperature effect on a-Si:H thin films studied by constant photocurrent method

Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin films are synthesized by tuning different process parameters among which substrate temperature of film growth plays an important role in monitoring the device quality of the film. In this paper we have used the constant photocurrent method (CPM) to study the effect of growth temperature on the electronic and optical parameters of a-Si:H films at different photon energies. This technique primarily measures the absorption coefficient which is a result of different electronic transitions that contribute to the photocurrent. The nature of absorption coefficient changes with growth temperature that explicitly provides the information about the density of defect states present in the mid gap of a-Si:H.