Investigation of the Meyer–Neldel compensation rule in binary selenium-based amorphous semiconductors

Abstract This paper contributes to a series of work analyzing the Meyer–Neldel compensation rule (MNCR) for various binary Se-based amorphous semiconductor systems. These systems are classified into two groups relying on the coordination number of the stoichiometric compound in each of the binary systems (〈r〉 = 2.4 and 2.4〈r〉 ≤ 2.67). The estimated shift in the Fermi level of the investigated materials declares the physical basis of the MNCR behavior for DC conductivity where the activation energies (ΔE) are commonly measured around and above room-temperature. Also, the obtained MN energy (EMN) values, supporting the electronic polaron hopping model resulted from the carrier-induced softening vibrations, provide a clearer physical picture for origin of the rule. In this consensus, one can realize the concept of multiple excitations entropy, that reserved for the large vibrations accompanied large ΔE, dominates the correlation between the two MNCR parameters (true pre-factor σ00 and EMN) for all investigated systems in both groups.