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Preparation and Applications of Amorphous Silicon

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Crystalline Semiconducting Materials and Devices

Part of the book series: Physics of Solids and Liquids ((PSLI))

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with the preparation, properties, and possible applications of amorphous silicon (a-Si) prepared by the glow-discharge (gd) decomposition of silane. There were a number of important fundamental developments during the 1970s that established the considerable applied potential of this material and led to the present rapid growth in its use in commercial products. The first of these was the discovery,(1–4) as early as 1972, that a-Si prepared by the gd technique possesses a very low density of states in the mobility gap, probably the most important single factor in its applied potential. A direct result of this has been the development of the a-Si field-effect transistor (FET), discussed in Section 16.3, which could find applications in large-area addressable displays, in addressable image-sensing arrays, and in logic circuits.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Carnegie Laboratory of Physics, University of Dundee, Dundee, Scotland, UK

    P. G. LeComber

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  1. P. G. LeComber
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Warwick, Coventry, England

    Paul N. Butcher

  2. University of Oxford, Oxford, England

    Norman H. March

  3. International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy

    Mario P. Tosi

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© 1986 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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LeComber, P.G. (1986). Preparation and Applications of Amorphous Silicon. In: Butcher, P.N., March, N.H., Tosi, M.P. (eds) Crystalline Semiconducting Materials and Devices. Physics of Solids and Liquids. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9900-2_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9900-2_16

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-9902-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-9900-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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