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Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon-Nitrogen, a-Si,N:H ALLOYS: An Alternative to A-SI,C:H for the Wide Band Gap Photo-Active Material in Tandem PV Cells

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1993

M.J. Williams ,
S.M. Cho  and
G. Lucovsky
M.J. Williams
Affiliation:
Departments of Physics, and Materials Science and Engineering North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-8202
S.M. Cho
Affiliation:
Departments of Physics, and Materials Science and Engineering North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-8202
G. Lucovsky
Affiliation:
Departments of Physics, and Materials Science and Engineering North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-8202
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Abstract

We have investigated a-Si,N:H alloys as an alternative wide band-gap, photo-active material. The entire alloy range between a-Si:H and a-Si3N4:H can be formed by a remote plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor deposition (PECVD) process. Other studies have demonstrated that a-Si,N:H alloys could be doped to form window materials for p-i-n devices. This paper focuses on alloy materials with E04 bandgaps to about 2.2 eV. We have prepared these a-Si,N:H alloys, characterized their microstructure, and studied their photoconductivity, sensitivity to light-soaking and transport properties. For example, with increased alloying we show that i) the white-light photoconductivity and ii) the kinetics and magnitude of the decay of photoconducitivity under intense illumination (the Staebler-Wronski effect), are about the same as for PV-grade a-Si:H.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 297: Symposium A – Amorphous Silicon Technology - 1993 , 1993 , 759
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1993

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References

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