The Electronic Properties of Nano, Micro and Amorphous Silicon

Abstract

The revolution of the information age that we are witnessing now is technologically based on the microelectronic-silicon technology that has been developed in the last few decades. The corresponding heavily invested industry made crystalline silicon (c-Si) the system on which more physical studies have been carried out than on any other material. The main features that brought about the success of c-Si are its superior and controllable electronic transport properties. On the other hand, other features, notably its indirect band gap, make c-Si inadequate for various (primarily electro-optical) applications. The corresponding technological challenge in the last decade became then to produce silicon systems that will “compensate” for these “deficiencies” but will also be compatible with the above technology. Hence, various silicon-based systems have been produced and are hoped to be the basis for various applications. Parallel with the above technological advances there were significant strides made in the understanding of disordered semiconductors and “quantum-size” effects. The meeting between the needs of silicon-based applications and the basic physical understanding made the study of the new silicon systems a very intensive field of research in recent years.