Electrical, optical, and structural properties of nitrogen-doped hydrogenated amorphous silicon films with the N content up to about 12 at. &percent; are systematically studied using electrical conductivity measurements, electron-spin resonance, light-induced electron-spin resonance, constant photocurrent method, optical absorption spectrophotometry, IR absorption spectroscopy, Raman scattering spectroscopy, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Both behaviors of the dark conductivity and the charged-dangling-bond density against the N content suggest that most of charged dangling bonds originate from potential fluctuations. Only part of charged dangling bonds created by the N doping up to 2 at. &percent; originate from positively charged fourfold-coordinated N. The decay behavior of the photoconductivity after turning off the probing light also supports that most of charged dangling bonds in N-doped hydrogenated amorphous silicon do not originate from positively charged fourfold-coordinated N. A possible origin of potential fluctuations is increased fluctuations in the net electron density at Si sites accompanying structural randomness caused by the N doping. ©1997 American Institute of Physics.