PACS: 72.20,73.50,73.61

Heat flux effect on photoenhanced and dark
silver motion in a thin As₂S₃ layer

Institute of Semiconductor Physics, NAS, Ukraine, 
Prospekt Nauki 45, Kyiv-28, 03028, Ukraine

Abstract. The influence of a heat flux on the rate of photoenhanced and dark Ag transfer in the lightsensitive thin layer As₂S₃-Ag structure was investigated. It was found that the Ag flux increased when a heat flux had the same direction and fell down when the heat flux had an opposite direction. The changes of Ag flux were proportional to a power of the heat flux caused by some temperature difference on the structure surfaces. Coupling between Ag and heat fluxes was described phenomenologically using a generalized mass transfer equation, but the obtained results did not enable to deduce an explicit micromechanism of such interaction. Tentatively, a phonon drag mechanism seems to be more preferable among the known ones, when explaining the Soret effect in this structure.

Keywords: mass transfer, Soret effect, photoenhanced diffusion, dark diffusion, chalcogenides, mobile silver ions.

Paper received 04.11.00; revised manuscript received 07.12.00; accepted for publication 12.12.00.