Wide Optical-Gap, Photoconductive a-SixN1-x:H

Abstract
The electrical and optical properties of a-Si x N1-x :H prepared by the glow discharge of a SiH4-NH3-H2 gas mixture have been systematically investigated as a function of the ammonia-to-silane molar fraction. The optical bandgap increases smoothly from 1.75 eV to 5.5 eV as the molar fraction increases. A normalized photoconductivity ηµτ larger than 10-6 cm2V-1 is easily obtained in the ammonia fraction range 3.3×10-3 to 0.60, and it has a maximum (ηµτ≧4.8 ×10-5 cm2V1) around a fraction of 0.1.