Amorphous silicon large area electronics

Large area electronics is a recently established technology for optical scanners and liquid crystal displays. The devices are fabricated from deposited thin films because size requirements prevent the use of single crystal silicon substrates. This technology has potential applications in medical imaging and high energy particle physics. Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) satisfies the requirements for large area electronics. This material is deposited on glass, and can be fabricated into field effect transistors, light senors and other circuit elements. This paper describes the structure and performance of the individual a-Si:H device elements, the processing of large arrays and some anticipated future improvements in materials and devices