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Highly mobile oxygen hole-type charge carriers in fused silica
F Freund1, M M Masuda, M M Freund
1Department of Physics, San Jose State University, California 95192, USA.
Abstract:
Some peculiar positive charge carriers are thermally generated in fused silica above 500 degrees C. These charge carriers appear to be positive holes, chemically O- states, probably arising from dissociation of peroxy defects. The charge carriers give rise to a pronounced positive surface charge which disappears upon cooling but can be quenched by rapid quenching from approximately 800 degrees C. Reheating to approximately 200 degrees C remobilizes these charge carriers and causes them to anneal below 400 degrees C. The generation of positive holes charge carriers may be important to understand failure mechanisms of SiO2 insulators.
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