1H NMR electron-nuclear cross relaxation in thin films of hydrogenated amorphous silicon

We investigate the spin-lattice relaxation of the dipolar order in 1H NMR in hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H). We find that the relaxation is dominated by the cross relaxation between the hydrogen nuclei and the paramagnetic states. The relaxation is inhomogeneous, and can be described as a stretched exponential function. We proposed a possible mechanism for this relaxation. This mechanism applies to a rather broad range of paramagnetic states, including the deep neutral defects (dangling bonds), the light-induced metastable defects, the defects created by doping, and the singly occupied, localized band-tail states populated by light at low temperatures. The cross relaxation is only sensitive to the bulk spin density, and the surface spins have a negligible effect on the relaxation