Switching in a-Si:H and a-Si:HNx layers is investigated by pulse current transient and Auger scanning microspectroscopy measurements. Switching in a-Si:H with Ag and Cr contacts exhibits 2 different regimes depending on the voltage pulse polarity. With a positive top Ag contact, switching occurs in nanoseconds after a certain latency time, which depends on voltage exponentially. For a negative Ag contact, there is no latency time provided the voltage exceeds a certain critical value. This might be related to interface effects on contact properties or field-assisted metal diffusion. Scanning Auger element micromaps reveal metallic filaments in the switched films. They contain both Ag and Cr throughout the film thickness. Two phases of the filament formation are suggested – a precursor phase and a post-switching phase characterized by local heating and atomic diffusion. Soft and hard switching are observed in a-Si:HNx films simultaneously and their rates depend strongly on the contact material and applied voltage. Soft switching might be related to the charge trapping in this wide bandgap material.

This work aims to clarify possible improvements and physical limits of the Color Laser Scanned Photodiode image sensor when used as high sensitive non-pixel image reader. A new design based on a stacked n-i-p-n-i-p heterojunction is proposed and compared with the old single n-i-p sensing structure. Results show that a B-W image is acquired with an improved resolution. The readout frequency is optimized showing that scans speeds up to 104 lines per second can be achieved without degradation in the resolution. A physical model is presented and supported by an electrical and a numerical simulation of the output characteristics of the sensor.

This paper addresses scientific and technological efforts to develop highly efficient silicon thin film solar modules on glass substrates. We present a comprehensive study of μc-Si:H p-i-n single junction and a-Si:H/μc-Si:H stacked solar cells prepared by plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) at 13.56 MHz excitation frequency. In the first step cell development was performed in a small area PECVD reactor showing the relationship between deposition process and resulting solar cell performance. Subsequent up-scaling to a substrate area of 30×30 cm2 confirmed the scalability to large area reactors. Moreover, we developed textured ZnO:Al films by sputtering and post deposition wet chemical etching as front contact TCO-material with excellent light scattering properties. A-Si:H/μc-Si:H tandem cells developed on this textured ZnO yielded stable efficiencies up to 11.2 % for a cell area of 1 cm2. First solar modules were prepared in our recently installed process technology, which includes PECVD, sputtering, texture etching and laser scribing on substrate sizes up to 30x30 cm2. Initial module efficiencies of 10.8 % and 10.1 % were achieved for aperture areas of 64 cm2 and 676 cm2, respectively.

In this work we present a comparative study of porous silicon (PS) photoluminescence for samples stain etched and electrochemically etched. The etching parameters for both types of samples have been adjusted to obtain similar porous structures. The photoluminescence spectra have been obtained varying the excitation energy between 2.48 and 3.54 eV. The variation of the excitation energy produces differences in the evolution of the emission energy maximum between both types of PS. This behaviour is attributable to the differences in oxidation level in the porous structure. Also it has been established a higher concentration of luminescent centers for stain etched PS.

Nanocrystalline Germanium-Carbon alloys, denoted by nc- (Ge,C):H, are a potentially useful new electronic material whose bandgap can be varied by changing the Ge:C ratios. We have shown previously that nanocrystalline (Ge,C):H films can be grown using remote ECR plasma deposition. In this paper, we report on the crystal structure, electron mobility and some device related properties of these materials. The materials were grown using mixtures of either Germane and methane, with significant hydrogen dilution, or from mixtures of ethylene and germane, also with significant hydrogen dilution. X-ray diffraction measurements indicated a predominantly <111> crystal structure. The grain size was in the range of 10 nm. Raman measurements clearly show the 300 cm-1 Ge peak in the films. Electron Hall mobilities were measured in these films and were found to be in the range of 2.5-3 cm2/V-sec. Proof-of-concept p+nn+ junction devices were fabricated and showed distinct photovoltaic properties. The open circuit voltage was found to be a strong function of the itnerfaces between n+ and n layers, and between p+ and n layers. The use of an amorphous n+/n interface at the back of the improved the device performance significantly. Capacitance measurements indicated that the device behaved according to standard p/n junction theory, with the n- doping in the base layer being in the 1017/cm3 range. Thus, the base layer was not intrinsic, but rather n type, as may be expected for a crystalline as opposed to amorphous material. Quantum efficiency data indicated that as C was added to the material, the edge of the QE curve shifted to higher photon energies, indicating larger bandgaps.

In this work we present the first experimental study of photocarrier lifetimes in p-type and n-type Si substrates in which stain etched porous silicon (PS) has been formed on the surface. The lifetime values have been obtained before and after the surface passivation of the samples. The surface pasivation has been produced by two different techniques: (i) hydrogen passivation by immersion of the samples in a HF solution; and (ii) deposition of SiNx in a plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition system. The results show a degradation of the photocarrier lifetime when the porous layers are not adequately passivated. This lifetime degradation is mainly associated to a large concentration of rapid recombination centres located at the Si/PS interface. We have also detected a weak influence of the PS outermost dangling bonds to the photocarrier lifetimes.

Doped and undoped laser crystallized polycrystalline silicon was investigated by electron-spin-resonance experiments. In P-doped samples two resonance are detected at g = 2.0053 and g = 1.998 which are due to silicon dangling bonds and conducting electrons, respectively. After crystallization a large amount of hydrogen remains in the samples. This residual hydrogen can be activated to reduce the spin density by passivating dangling-bonds. The temperature dependent investigation of the conducting electron resonance reveals that the susceptibility can be described by the sum of Pauli and Curie paramagnetism. The data are discussed in terms of models developed for single crystal and microcrystalline silicon.

Polymorphous Silicon (pm-Si:H) deposited by Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapour Deposition (PECVD) has emerged as an alternative material to amorphous silicon (a-Si:H). Deposition parameters of pm-Si:H are such that small crystallites get embedded in a relaxed amorphous silicon matrix, thus improving the optical and electrical properties. We study the size of crystallites and degree of order in pm-Si:H using Raman and photoluminescence (PL) spectra of pm-Si:H and a-Si:H. Raman Spectra of a variety of hydrogenated nanostructured silicon (pmSi:H) and amorphous Silicon (a-Si:H) samples grown at different pressures were analyzed. Deconvolution of observed multiple peaks in photoluminescence spectra and fitting to Gaussian size distribution also yields particle size to be in the range of 2.3 to 3.5nm in agreement with Transmission Electron Microscopy and Raman results.

We have found that narrow-bandgap—1.25 < Tauc Gap < 1.50 eV—amorphous silicon germanium (a-SiGe:H) alloys grown by hot-wire chemical vapor deposition (hot-wire CVD) can be improved by lowering both substrate and filament temperatures. We systematically study films deposited using a one-tungsten filament, decreasing filament temperature (Tf) from our standard temperature of 2150° down to 1750°C, and fixing all other deposition parameters. By decreasing Tf at the fixed substrate temperature (Ts) of 180°C, the Ge-H bonding increases, whereas the Si-H2 bonding is eliminated. Films with higher Ge-H bonding and less Si-H2 have improved photoconductivity. For the series of films deposited using the same germane gas fraction at 35%, the energy where the optical absorption is 1x104 (E04) drops from 1.54 to 1.41 eV with decreasing Tf. This is mainly due to the combination of an increasing Ge solid fraction (x) in the film, and an improved homogeneity and compactness due to significant reduction of microvoids, which was confirmed by small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). We also studied a series of films grown by decreasing the Ts from our previous standard temperature of 350°C down to 125°C, fixing all other deposition parameters including Tf at 1800°C. By decreasing Ts, both the total hydrogen content (CH) and the Ge-H bonding increased, but the Si-H2 bonding is not measurable in the Ts range of 180°-300°C. The E04 increases from 1.40 to 1.51 eV as Ts decreased from 350° to 125°C, mainly due to the increased total hydrogen content (CH). At the same time, the photo-to-dark conductivity ratio increases almost three orders of magnitude over this range of Ts.

We present femtosecond time-resolved studies of the photoexcited carrier response in the far-infrared spectral range in PECVD a-Si:H and a-SiGe:H thin films. The experiments are carried out using an optical pump / terahertz (THz) probe technique, in which a femtosecond pump pulse excites carriers in the sample and a time-delayed probe pulse measures the resulting change in the far-infrared optical properties as a function of time delay following the excitation. These measurements are sensitive to carrier processes at low energy, corresponding to a range of approximately 1 - 10 meV, a key energy scale in these materials. We find that the observed photoexcited carrier dynamics are consistent with trapping of carriers into band tail states on a picosecond time scale.

We apply combinatorial approaches to thin-film Si materials and device research. Our hot-wire chemical vapor deposition chamber is fitted with substrate xyz translation, a motorized shutter, and interchangable shadow masks to implement various combinatorial methods. For example, we have explored, in detail, the transition region through which thin Si changes from amorphous to microcrystalline silicon. This transition is very sensitive to deposition parameters such as hydrogen-to-silane dilution of the source gas, chamber pressure, and substrate temperature. A material library, on just a few substrates, led to a three-dimensional map of the transition as it occurs in our deposition system. This map guides our scientific studies and enables us to use several distinct transition materials in our solar-cell optimization research. We also grew thickness-graded wedge samples spanning the amorphous-to-microcrystalline Si transition. These single stripes map the temporal change of the thin silicon phase onto a single spatial dimension. Therefore, the structural, optical, and electrical properties can easily be studied through the phase transition. We have examined the nature of the phase change on the wedges with Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS), x-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy (XANES), ultraviolet reflectivity, and other techniques. Combinatorial techniques also accelerate our device research. In solar cells, for example, the combinatorial approach has significantly accelerated the optimization process of p-, i-, n-, and buffer layers through wide exploration of the complex space of growth parameters and layer thicknesses. Again, only a few deposition runs are needed. It has also been useful to correlate the materials properties of single layers in a device to their performance in the device. We achieve this by depositing layers that extend beyond the device dimensions to permit independent characterization of the layers. Not only has the combinatorial approach greatly increased the rate of materials and device experimentation in our laboratory, it has also been a powerful tool leading to a better understanding of structure-property relationships in thin-film Si.

Due to the high temperatures used for high deposition rate microcrystalline (μc-Si:H) and polycrystalline silicon, there is a need for compact and temperature-stable doped layers. In this study we report on films grown by the layer-by-layer method (LbL) using VHF PECVD. Growth of an amorphous silicon layer is alternated by a hydrogen plasma treatment. In LbL, the surface reactions are separated time-wise from the nucleation in the bulk. We observed that it is possible to incorporate dopant atoms in the layer, without disturbing the nucleation. Even at high substrate temperatures (up to 400°C) doped layers can be made microcrystalline. At these temperatures, in the continuous wave case, crystallinity is hindered, which is generally attributed to the out-diffusion of hydrogen from the surface and the presence of impurities (dopants).

We observe that the parameter window for the treatment time for p-layers is smaller compared to n-layers. Moreover we observe that for high temperatures, the nucleation of p-layers is more adversely affected than for n-layers. Thin, doped layers have been structurally, optically and electrically characterized. The best n-layer made at 400°C, with a thickness of only 31 nm, had an activation energy of 0.056 eV and a dark conductivity of 2.7 S/cm, while the best p-layer made at 350°C, with a thickness of 29 nm, had an activation energy of 0.11 V and a dark conductivity of 0.1 S/cm. The suitability of these high temperature n-layers has been demonstrated in an n-i-p microcrystalline silicon solar cell with an unoptimized μc-Si:H i-layer deposited at 250°C and without buffer. The Voc of the cell is 0.48 V and the fill factor is 70 %.

Light soaking for short durations and thermal quenching produce metastable states having a higher dark current, higher photo current, a larger photoluminescence and a smaller electron spin resonance signal in porous silicon (PS). Long exposures, however, have the opposite effect. All metastabilities can be removed by annealing at 150°C (1 h), but not by exposure to infrared light. Micro-Raman spectroscopy shows the presence of a-Si:H in the PS sample. However, a closer look shows that our results can not be explained in terms of a-Si:H alone. Our experiments suggest that structural changes involving the movement of hydrogen present on the surface of PS or on PS/a-Si:H interface may be responsible for these effects.

μc-Si has traditionally been deposited by Hot Wire CVD at a low filament temperature. At these temperatures, silicides rapidly form on the filament surface, leading in the case of a tungsten filament to both film reproducibility and filament lifetime issues. By depositing films consecutively using identical deposition parameters, these issues are chronicled for a filament temperature of ∼ 1750°C. Upon increasing the filament temperature to ∼1825-1850°C, these reproducibility and lifetime issues disappear and, by lowering both the substrate temperature and chamber pressure, device quality μc-Si is deposited at high deposition rates in a filament regime where tungsten silicide formation is minimal. Both single junction and tandem solar cells are fabricated using this material, confirming the validity of this approach.

Based on a small set of selected publications on the using of nanocrystalline silicon films (nc-Si) for solar cell from 1997 to 2001, this paper reviews the application of nc-Si films as intrinsic layers in p-i-n solar cells. The new structure of nc-Si films deposited at high chamber pressure and high hydrogen dilution have characters of nanocrystalline grains with dimension about several tens of nanometer embedded in matrix of amorphous tissue and a high volume fraction of crystallinity (60~80%). The new nc-Si material have optical gap of 1.89 eV. The efficiency of this single junction solar cell reaches 8.7%. This nc-Si layer can be used not only as an intrinsic layer and as a p-type layer. Also nanocrystalline layer may be used as a seed layer for the growth of polycrystalline Si films at a low temperature.

We used single ion beam sputtering methods to synthesize nanocrystalline silicon films successfully. The films were characterized with the technique of X-ray diffraction, Atomic Force Micrographs. We found that the films had a character of nc-amorphous double phase structure. Conductivity test at different temperatures presented the transportation of electrons dominated by different mechanism within different temperature ranges. Photoconductivity gains of the material were obtained in our recent investigation.

We report the observation of strongly anisotropic scattering of laser light at oblique incidence on (100)-oriented porous silicon layers. We performed angle-resolved light scattering measurements and three concentric rings were observed. Modeling porous silicon by means of nanometric columnar air pores and an effective anisotropic uniaxial dielectric constant explains the observed phenomenon, and besides, the observation of the angle aperture of these rings allows a direct measurement of relative birefringence. We finally study the changes of optical anisotropy after different modifications of the structure.

Interface response functions that govern the solidification kinetics of amorphous and crystalline phases of Si and Ge have been determined for reparameterized versions of the Stillinger-Weber (SW) potential. The strength of the three-body term in the SW potential and the energy scaling parameter were modified to obtain agreement with the experimental melting temperatures of both the amorphous and crystalline phases. These modified models were used to produce predictions of the interface response function for both Si and Ge that adequately fit the few known experimental data.

We prepared porous silicon (PSi) structures by standard electrochemical processes using aqueous sodium fluoride (NaF) solutions. We report the dependence of the porous structure on the variation of pH and salt concentration of the etching solution, and the applied current density. The PSi structures were characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy (SIMS) to determine the pore size and distribution and the surface chemical composition. Results obtained from SEM show that the PSi grown has two different structures depending on the current density. Low current densities produce a uniform, high-density arrangement of pores while high current densities yield a sponge-like structural network. SIMS results indicate that the porous framework is covered with a silicon oxide layer.

The influence of laser dehydrogenation and crystallization of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) on H bonding is investigated. Depending on the deposition temperature the amorphous starting material contains a H concentration of up to 44 at.%. Laser crystallization lowers the H content significantly. Fully crystallized poly-Si contains H concentrations of up to 17 at.%. This reservoir of hydrogen can be used to passivate additional grain boundary defects by annealing the specimens at low temperatures in vacuum. Information on hydrogen bonding is obtained from hydrogen effusion measurements.

The ability to characterize the phase of the intrinsic (i) layers incorporated into amorphous silicon [a-Si:H] and microcrystalline silicon [μc-Si:H] thin film solar cells is critically important for cell optimization. In our research, a new method has been developed to extract the thickness evolution of the μc-Si:H volume fraction in mixed phase amorphous + microcrystalline silicon [(a+μc)-Si:H] i-layers. This method is based on real time spectroscopic ellipsometry measurements performed during plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition of the films. In the analysis, the thickness at which crystallites first nucleate from the a-Si:H phase can be estimated, as well as the nucleation density and microcrystallite cone angle. The results correlate well with structural and solar cell measurements.