Electronic transport and paramagnetic defects detected by electron spin resonance in both intrinsic and <n>-type silicon oxide prepared by PECVD were investigated. The structure and alloy composition of the material were varied all the way from microcrystalline silicon (µc-Si:H) to amorphous silicon oxide (a-SiOx:H). The transition-phase-mixture material was called “microcrystalline silicon oxide” (µc-SiOx:H). In undoped samples, a strong reduction was found in the dark conductivity, from 10-3to 10-12S/cm, and an increase in the spin density from 1017 to 3 x 1019/cm3 as the crystallinity decreased from 80% to 0%. The variation of the dark conductivity in phosphorous-doped samples was even higher: from 101 to 10-12S/cm. The electron spin resonance spectra of intrinsic material consisted of a single featureless line with g-values in the range of 2.0043 to 2.005; depending upon the structure and doping. The spectra of <n>-type material exhibited a broader range of g-values of 1.998…2.0043 due to strong variations of the Fermi level over the entire crystallinity range. The results were explained within the framework of the current understanding of µc-SiOx:H as a phase mixture of µc-Si:H crystallites embedded in a-SiOx:H matrix

Defects and Structure of µc-SiOx:H Deposited by PECVD. L.Xiao, O.Astakhov, R.Carius, A.Lambertz, T.Grundler, F.Finger: Physica Status Solidi C, 2010, 7[3-4], 941–4