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Electronic Properties of Noncrystalline Semiconductors

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Excitonic and Photonic Processes in Materials

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Materials Science ((SSMATERIALS,volume 203))

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Abstract

The electronic properties of inorganic noncrystalline semiconductors are reviewed in this chapter using the effective mass approach in the real coordinate space. It is shown that many properties that can be studied through the effective mass approximation applied in the reciprocal lattice vector k-space in crystalline semiconductors can be studied in noncrystalline semiconductors in the real coordinate r-space. The effective masses of electrons and holes are derived in their respective extended and tail states within the real coordinate space. The mechanism of the double sign reversal leading to the anomalous Hall effect observed in hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) has been successfully explained using the theory of effective mass. It is demonstrated that excitons can also be formed in noncrystalline semiconductors and the energy difference between the singlet and triplet exciton energies is larger than in crystalline semiconductors. The application of the new time-dependent exciton-spin-orbit-photon interaction derived recently by the author has been reviewed for harvesting the radiative emission from triplet excitons, where the traditional perturbation approach cannot be applied very successfully.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering and Information Technology, B-purple-12, Faculty of EHSE, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT, 0909, Australia

    Jai Singh

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  1. Jai Singh
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  1. School of Engineering and IT Faculty of Engn., Health, Science & Env., Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia

    Jai Singh

  2. Department of Physics, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA

    Richard T. Williams

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Singh, J. (2015). Electronic Properties of Noncrystalline Semiconductors. In: Singh, J., Williams, R. (eds) Excitonic and Photonic Processes in Materials. Springer Series in Materials Science, vol 203. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-131-2_7

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