Self-luminescence was observed in tritiated amorphous material. The substitution of T for H provided a powerful means for studying dangling bonds. The radioactive decay of T led to an increase, in the dangling-bond concentration, of several orders of magnitude during a period of several weeks. There was little other modification of the structure. Photoluminescence was studied as a function of time in tritiated amorphous material. An analysis of the data, in terms of a simple theoretical model in which dangling bonds were treated as non-radiative recombination centres, yielded a capture radius of 3.2nm for the D0 defect.

Effect of Dangling-Bond Density on Luminescence in Tritiated Amorphous Silicon L.S.Sidhu, T.Kosteski, S.Zukotynski, N.P.Kherani, W.T.Shmayda: Applied Physics Letters, 1999, 74[26], 3975-7