Conduction in Polycrystalline Silicon: Generalized Thermionic Emission-Diffusion Theory and Extended State Mobility Model

Abstract

We present a general theory of conduction in polysilicon. The theoretical framework reconciles two apparently divergent approaches for modeling conduction processes in polysilicon and provides a physical basis to correctly interpret and to point out the deficiencies of previously reported thermionic and thermionic field emission theory. This model is based on an extended state mobility in the disordered grain boundary and the thermionic emission-diffusion theory for conduction of current. The attractive features of our theory are (a) it can explain the experimental data without the use of an artificial factor, f, (b) the conduction process is characterized explicitly by the inherent material properties of the grain and the grain boundary. Our model is particularly suited for describing the electrical properties of laser restructured polysilicon, where because of large grain size the diffusion process is expected to be dominant.