ELSEVIER SCIENCE Microelectronics Journal 29 (1998)5-11 © 1997 Publishedby ElsevierScience Limited Printed in Great Britain. All fightsreserved 0026-2692/98/$19.00 PH:SO026-2692(97)O0017-7 Reversible and irreversible effects on the electrical characteristics of new high-speed a-Si and a-SiC switches E.I. Dimitriadis, N. Georgoulas and A. Thanailakis Laboratory of Electricaland Electronic Materials Technology, Department of Electricaland Computer Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, 67100 Xanthi, Greece. Tel: +30(0)54I 26476. Fax: +30(0)541 26947 The reversible effect of various factors, such as temperature, light intensity and potential applied to a gate electrode, on the electrical characteristics of new high-speed a-Si/c-Si- and a-SiC/c-Si-based switches are, for the first time, presented and discussed in this paper. The irreversible effect of the width of amorphous film on the electrical character- istics of these switches is also studied. The values of forward breakover voltage (VBF), forward voltage drop (VF) and holding current (Ih) of these thyristor-like switches may be either reversibly or irreversibly controlled by varying the above factors, thus controlling the device operation. © 1997 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. 1. Introduction A novel device application of amorphous hydrogenated silicon thin films is in the thyristor-like threshold switches [1-3]. We have presented elsewhere [4-6] the fabrication, the electrical characteristics and a model for the device operation of the new non-hydrogenated a-Si/c-Si- and a-SiC/c-Si-based switches, which exhibit the highest ever reported values of switching times in the range of about 3 nsec. A number of factors affecting reversibly, or irrever- sibly, the electrical characteristics of the above non-hydrogenated a-Si/c-Si and a-SiC/c-Si switches are presented and discussed, for the first time, in this paper. It has been found that light intensity, temperature and the gate elec- trode potential may cause similar reversible changes in the electrical characteristics of these switches, because they influence the carrier generation rate (light intensity and temperature)