Photoelectronic and electrical properties of InS crystals

Abstract

To identify the localized levels in InS single crystals, the dark electrical conductivity, current-voltage characteristics and photoconductivity measurements were carried out in the temperature range of 10-350 K. Temperature dependence of dark electrical conductivity and the space-charge limited current studies indicate the presence of a single discrete trapping level located at (10 +/- 2) meV below the conduction band with a density of about 4.8 x 10(11) cm(-3). The conductivity data above 110 K reveal an additional two independent donor levels with activation energies of (50 +/- 2) and (164 +/- 4) meV indicating the extrinsic nature of conductivity. The spectral distribution of photocurrent in the photon energy range of 0.8-3.1 eV reveals an indirect band gap of (1.91 +/- 0.04) eV. The photocurrent-illumination intensity dependence follows the law I-ph proportional to F-gamma, with gamma being 1.0 and 0.5 at low and high illumination intensities indicating the domination of monomolecular and bimolecular recombination, respectively. It is observed that the photocurrent increases in the temperature range of 10 K up to T-m = 110 K and decreases or remains constant for 110 K < T < 160 K and increases again above 160 K. The temperature dependence of the photocurrent reveals an additional shallow impurity level with activation energies of 3 meV.