Amorphous And Liquid Semiconductors Proceedings Of The Fourth International Conference Ann Arbor Michigan Usa August 9 13 1971 Sponsored By The Iupap Semiconductor Commission And Others

Solid state physics after solving so successfully many fundamental problems in perfect or slightly imperfect crystals, tried in recent years to attack problems associated with large disorder with the aim to understand the consequences of the lack of the long-range order. Semiconductors are much more changed by disorder than metals or insulators, and appear to be the most suitable materials for fundamental work. Considerable exploratory work on amorphous and liquid semiconductors was done by the Leningrad School since the early fifties. In recent years, much research in several countries was directed to deepen the understanding of the structural, electronic, optical, vibrational, magnetic and other proper ties of these materials and to possibly approach the present level of under standing of crystalline semiconductors. This effort was stimulated not only by purely scientific interest but also by the possibility of new applications from which memory devices in the general sense are perhaps the most challenging. The research met with serious difficulties which are absent in crystals.

The report describes the work performed during the second six-month period of Contract DAHC15-70-C-0187. Emphasis on the compositional dependence of electrical and optical gaps and glass transition temperatures has been retained. In addition, detailed studies of thermoelectric power, switching behavior, thermal stability of thin films, crystallization kinetics, and electromigration have been initiated and extensive results of these studies are presented herein. These measurements have been obtained primarily on thin film samples produced by R.F. sputtering using an Argon plasma. The effects of thermal history in determining the physical properties of these thin amorphous films at 25C and as a function of temperature have been studied extensively. In addition the liquid heat capacity results report previously for liquid Ge17Te83 have been extended to include six other tellurium rich alloys including pure tellurium. Three contributed papers and one invited paper describing work performed under this contract were presented at the Fourth International Conference on Amorphous and Liquid Semiconductors in Ann Arbor, Michigan on August 9-13, 1971. (Author).

The Kyoto Summer Institute 1980 (KSI '80), devoted to "Fundamental Physics of Amorphous Semiconductors", was held at Research Institute for Fundamental Physics (RIFP), Kyoto University, from 8-11 September, 1980. The KSI '80 was the successor of the preceding Institutes which were held in July 1978 on "Particle Physics and Accelerator Projects" and in September 1979 on "Physics of Low-Dimensional Systems". The KSI '80 was attended by 200 participants, of which 36 were from abroad: Canada, France, Korea, Poland, U.K., U.S.A, U.S.S.R., and the Federal Republic of Germany. The KSI '80 was organized by RIFP and directed by the Amorphous Semicon ductor group in Japan. A few years ago, we started to organize an interna tional meeting on amorphous semiconductors' as a satell ite meeting of the International Conference on "Physics of Semiconductors" held on September 1-5, 1980 in Kyoto. We later decided to hold the meeting in the form of the Kyoto Summer Institute. The Kyoto Summer Institute is aimed to be something between a school and a conference. Accordingly, the object of the KSI '80 was to provide a series of invited lectures and informal seminars on fundamental physics of amorphous semiconductors. No contributed paper was accepted, but seminars were open.