Self-consistency and self-sufficiency of the photocarrier grating technique

The recently suggested photocarrier grating technique appears to be the most reliable method available for the determination of the ambipolar diffusion length in hydrogenated amorphous silicon. We show that the technique can be made simpler than originally suggested, and that it is self-sufficient in the sense that all the required parameters can be determined by the same experimental setup. It is demonstrated that the various results obtained by the technique are self-consistent and that extremely accurate values of the ambipolar diffusion length can be determined.