Germanium orthogonal strip detectors have been produced using amorphous-semiconductor contacts. The amorphoussemiconductor contact fabrication process is relatively simple, and it is capable of producing fine-pitched electrode structures. The bipolar blocking behavior of the amorphoussemiconductor contact permits its use on both sides of a detector, replacing conventional B ion implanted and Li...

This thesis describes the forming process under constant current conditions of Cr/pa-Si:H/V thin film devices (a-Si:H denotes hydrogenated amorphous silicon). In the initial stages of electro-forming by constant current stressing, with increasing injection of charge via either increasing bias or time, the J V characteristics of devices exhibit an instability, as shown by a decrease in the rever...

The metal-insulator transition (MIT) caused purely by alloy disorder in a Zno 3Cdo 7Se semiconductor alloy has been probed by using persistent photoconductivity. Key parameters that describe the MIT, including the critical electron concentration n, and the energy tail states distribution parameter Eo, have been determined experimentally. Our results, together with those obtained for impurity-do...

We investigate the electronic structure of gap and band tail states in amorphous silicon. Starting with two 216-atom models of amorphous silicon with defect concentration close to the experiments, we systematically study the dependence of electron localization on basis set, density functional, and spin polarization using the first-principles density-functional code SIESTA. We briefly compare th...

The paper reviews the results of experimental studies and thermodynamical modelling of metastable T –P diagrams of initially amorphous GaSb–Ge and Zn–Sb alloys which provide a new insight into the problem of pressure-induced amorphization.

Amorphous oxide semiconductors based on indium oxide [e.g., In–Zn–O (IZO) and In–Ga–Zn–O (IGZO)] are of interest for use in thin-film transistor (TFT) applications. We report that the stability of amorphous In–Zn–O (a-IZO) used in TFT applications depends, in part, on the metallization materials used to form the source and drain contacts. A thermodynamics-based approach to the selection of IZO ...

The evolution and annealing of pores in, and the crystallization of, vapor-deposited films of amorphous solid water have been studied by using variable-energy positron annihilation spectroscopy for temperatures in the range 50-150 K. Both positron and positronium annihilation provide insight to the nature of the grown-in pores and their evolution with temperature. Crystallization of the films w...

The Sun provides approximately 100,000 terawatts to the Earth which is about 10000 times more than the present rate of the world's present energy consumption. Photovoltaic cells are being increasingly used to tap into this huge resource and will play a key role in future sustainable energy systems. So far, solid-state junction devices, usually made of silicon, crystalline or amorphous, and prof...