We describe a new technique to determine the density of localized states in the energy gap of amorphous silicon alloys from the temperature dependence of the low field conductance ofn‐i‐ndiodes. This new technique allows us to determine the bulk density of states in the center of a device. It involves fewer assumptions than other established techniques, and by varying the intrinsic layer thickness the density of states within approximately 400 meV of midgap can be determined. We measured the temperature dependence of the low field conductance of amorphous silicon alloyn‐i‐ndiodes with intrinsic layer thicknesses of 0.55, 0.45, and 0.15 &mgr;m and deduced the density of localized states to be approximately 5×1016cm−3 eV−1at 0.45 eV and 5×1017cm−3 eV−1at 0.24 eV below the bottom of the conduction band.