Light-induced annealing of metastable defects in hydrogenated amorphous silicon

Abstract
Measurements of light-induced creation and annealing of metastable dangling bond defects in undoped hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin films are reported. A decrease of the defect density by 50% induced by continuous illumination is observed after fast defect creation by pulsed light. The kinetics of creation and recovery are discussed, as well as the implications for present models treating metastable defects in hydrogenated amorphous silicon.