Kinetics of light-induced defect creation in amorphous silicon: The constant degradation method

We propose the Constant Degradation Method as a new scheme to investigate the kinetics of light induced creation of defects in amorphous hydrogenated silicon. In this method the photoconductivity is explicitly kept constant by continuously adjusting the incident light intensity. The experimentally observed linear dependence of both the light intensity and the induced defect density on illumination time is shown to be a direct consequence of the creation of defects by bimolecular recombination of electron-hole pairs. This time dependence is at variance with the predictions of dispersive transport models for the defect creation.