A study was made of the effect of temperature upon the defect band photoluminescence of moderately P-doped amorphous thin films that had been deposited by magnetron sputtering. Two types of recombination process were identified as being responsible for the observed temperature dependence of the defect photoluminescence band that was produced by sub-gap excitation. One of these processes was similar to that observed in intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous Si, and was suggested to originate from the recombination of carriers at band-tail states and dangling bonds. Donor-defect pairs at nearest-neighbor sites were suggested to be responsible for the other recombination process.

S.Yi, S.Liu, S.Gangopadhyay, W.Herbst, B.Schröder: Journal of Applied Physics, 1996, 80[8], 4587-91