The current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics of metal-organic compound conductive polymer-semiconductor Al/P2ClAn(C2H5COOH)/p-Si structures were measured in the temperature range 80–340 K. P2ClAn: the poly(2-chloroaniline). The P2ClAn emeraldine salt was synthesized chemically by using propionic (C2H5COOH) acid. The analysis of I-V characteristics based on the thermoionic emission (TE) mechanism has revealed a decrease of zero-bias barrier height and a increase of the ideality factor at lower temperatures. Temperature dependence of the barrier height (BH) has shown a disagreement with those calculated from C-V characteristics. This behaviour is attributed to Schottky barrier inhomogeneities at interface. The temperature coefficient of BH has been found to be -2.9×10-4 eV/K for Al/P2ClAn(C2H5COOH)/p-Si. ln(I 0/ $T^{2})$ versus 1/T plot gives activation energy and Richardson constant $A^{\ast}$ as 0.12 eV and 3.82×10-9 A/K2 cm2, respectively.

The characteristic features of a dc discharge generated between parallel plate electrodes and especially the discharge stabilization by the GaAs semiconducting cathode in such a system are studied. The cathode was irradiated on the back-side with IR light in a particular wavelength range that was used to control the photoconductivity of the material. The semiconductor material was found to stabilize the discharge. The current-voltage and radiation-voltage characteristics of the gas discharge cell with a semiconducting cathode were obtained experimentally. An investigation of the effect of the voltage amplitude on the dynamics of transient processes in the plane semiconductor-discharge gap structure was made for explanation of the light intensity and current decay. Expressions are obtained for the photoelectric gain.