For the study of electrical transport in amorphous semiconductors,

especially chalcogenide glasses, dc conductivity is one of the important parameters. The dc conductivity of chalcogenide glasses depends on the combination of starting components, synthesis conditions, rate of melt annealing, purity of starting components, thermal treatment, and on some other important factors. The electrical conduction process in amorphous semiconductors is generally governed by the three mechanisms namely (1) the transfer of charge carriers between delocalized states in the conduction band (E > E c) and valence band (E < E v), (2) transitions of charge carriers in the band tails, and (3) the hopping of charge carriers between delocalized states in bands near the Fermi find more level (E F). To explain the conduction mechanism in amorphous semiconductors, studies on check details temperature dependence

of conductivity is reported by various workers [54–57]. It is understood that conduction in chalcogenide glasses is intrinsic [58, 59] and that the Fermi level is close to the midway of the energy gap. Intrinsic conduction of amorphous semiconductors is determined by carrier hopping from the states close to the edge of the valence band to localized CB-839 in vivo states near the Fermi level or from the state near the Fermi level to the conduction band. The suitable conduction mechanism is decided depending on the predominant process. In the case of chalcogenide glasses, the Fermi level is somewhat

shifted from the middle of the energy gap toward the valence band [60]. In the present work, we have also studied the temperature dependence of dc conductivity of thin films of a-(PbSe)100−x Cd x nanoparticles over the temperature range of 297 to 400 K. From the variations of dc conductivity with temperature, it is found that the experimental data for the entire temperature range is fitted well with the thermally activated process model. To elucidate the conduction mechanism in the present sample of a-(PbSe)100−x Cd x nanoparticles, we have applied the thermally activated process for the temperature over region of 297 to 400 K. The plot of ln σdc versus 1000/T for the temperature range of 297 to 400 K is presented in Figure 8. The graph is a straight line, indicating that the conduction in this system is through a thermally activated process. The conductivity is, therefore, expressed by the usual relation given as follows [4]: (7) where σ0 represents the pre-exponential factor, and ΔE c is the dc activation energy which is calculated from the slope of ln σdc versus 1000/T plot. Figure 8 Variation of refractive index ( n ) with incident photon energy (h ν ) in thin films of a-(PbSe) 100−x Cd x nanoparticles. Using the slope and intercept of Figure 8, we have calculated the value of ΔE c and σ0, respectively. The calculated values of ΔE c and σ0 for different compositions of cadmium in a-(PbSe)100−x Cd x nanoparticle thin films are shown in Table 1.