A detailed investigation was made of the creation and annealing kinetics of metastable defects in intrinsic device-quality hydrogenated amorphous films that had been deposited at a high rate by using the He dilution of silane. The carrier generation rate, as well as the light-soaking temperature, were varied in order to study their respective effects upon the degradation and recovery rates and upon the steady-state defect density. The experimental results showed that the annealing rate was increased by illumination, although the films exhibited a weaker dependence of the steady-state defect density upon the carrier generation rate and temperature than did films that had been deposited using pure silane. The results were explained in terms of a simple phenomenological model which had already been successful in describing metastable phenomena in standard samples.

S.Vignoli, R.Meaudre, M.Meaudre: Philosophical Magazine B, 1996, 73[2], 261-76