Defect relaxation in disordered materials

Using an exponential distribution of activation barriers, annealing data for metastable effects in hydrogenated amorphous silicon, a-Si:H, are quantitatively explained. This includes the stretched exponential time dependence of annealing and a Meyer-Neldel rule for the annealing time constant. An exponential distribution of annealing energies arises because defects are frozen in during growth at high temperature. Mechanisms that lead to an exponential distribution of annealing energies are weak bond-breaking and charge trapping