Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2011
The presence of selenium (Se) or Telurium (Te) in amorphous silicon films seems to improve the quality of these films by reducing the number of unsatisfied or dangling bonds and changing the optical gap and thermal activation energy. The thermal activation energies of a-Si:Sex and a-Si:Tex were always larger than that of a-Si films. The measured optical gap can be tailored to some value between 0.8 eV and 1.8 eV depending on the use of Se or Te and on the relative concentrations. The presence of Se or Te in a-Si films seems to have the same effect as that of hydrogen in a-Si films prepared by glow discharge of silane and used in solar cells.