title: Measuring charge transport in a thin solid film using charge sensing.
abstract: We measure charge transport in a hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin film using a nanometer scale silicon MOSFET as a charge sensor. This charge detection technique makes possible the measurement of extremely large resistances even in the presence of blocking contacts. At high temperatures, where the resistance of the a-Si:H is not too large, the charge detection measurement agrees with a direct measurement of current. The device geometry allows us to probe both the field effect and dispersive transport in the a-Si:H using charge sensing and to extract the density of states near the Fermi energy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. kmaclean@mit.edu
authors.forename: Kenneth
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Maclean
authors.forename: Tamar S
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Mentzel
authors.forename: Marc A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Kastner
mesh_terms: D004579:Electron Transport; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D008422:Materials Testing; D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D010316:Particle Size; D055672:Static Electricity; D014173:Transistors, Electronic
chemical_list: D008567:Membranes, Artificial