DIELECTRIC-RELAXATION AND HYDROGEN DIFFUSION IN AMORPHOUS-SILICON

Hydrogen diffusion is technologically critical to the processing of amorphous Si for solar cell applications. It is shown that this diffusion belongs to a broad class of dielectric relaxation mechanisms which were first studied by Kohlrausch in 1847. A microscopic theory of the Kohlrausch relaxation constant beta(K) is also constructed. This theory explains the values of beta observed in many electronic, molecular and polymeric relaxation processes. It is based on two novel concepts: Wiener sausages, from statistical mechanics, and the magic wand, from axiomatic set theory.