Normal and Inverted Meyer-Neldel Rule in Hot-Wire CVD Deposited Nanocrystalline Silicon

The Meyer–Neldel rule for dc activation processes in mixed isoelectronic chalcogens systems

“…Similarly, negative slope for the function lnσ 0 = f(ΔE) has been observed in crystalline tetrahedrally bonded semiconductors (essentially silicon) having different grain size from macro (bulk, c-) to nano (n-) including the micro (μ-) range. Examples are in: undoped c-Si [43], μc-Si:H [50] and nc-Si [51] as well as for doped μc-Si:H [52]. Ram et al [52] states that both presence (E MN > 0) and absence (E MN b 0) of MNR can be seen in the dark conductivity behavior of highly crystalline single phase undoped μc-Si:H material, depending on the microstructure and the correlative DOS features.…”

Normal and anti Meyer–Neldel rule in conductivity of highly crystallized undoped microcrystalline silicon films

“…MNR in lc-Si:H has been generally understood using the above theory/calculations, but the anti-MNR behavior is rather less elucidated. Most workers [13,14] have attributed the anti-MNR behavior observed in doped lc-Si:H material to the model implicating energy band (EB) diagram of crystalline silicon (c-Si) and a-Si:H interface as proposed by Lucovsky and Overhof [9]. According to this model, anti-MNR can be observed only in a degenerate case when very heavy doping of the lc-Si:H material causes E f to move above E c in the crystalline phase and consequently E f can move deeply into the tail states in the disordered region.…”

“…Apart from MNR, another interesting and important phenomenon is the anti-MNR, in which a negative value of E MN is seen. Anti-MNR has been reported in heavily doped lc-Si:H [9,12,13] and heterogeneous Si (het-Si) thin film transistors (TFTs) [14]. This phenomenon has been explained by the E f moving deep into the band tail.…”

Band-tail profiling in microcrystalline silicon by photoconductivity analysis

“…18,19 The good photoconductive properties are reflected by the room-temperature majority-carrier efficiency-mobilitylifetime product of 2ϫ10 Ϫ6 cm 2 V Ϫ1 and the ambipolar diffusion length L d from the steady-state photocarrier grating technique 20 of 152 nm, measured at a photon flux of 6ϫ10 16 cm Ϫ2 s Ϫ1 . At a lower photon flux of 1.5 ϫ10 14 cm Ϫ2 s Ϫ1 the value is much higher and equals 2ϫ10 Ϫ5 cm 2 V Ϫ1 .…”