Laser and oven annealing effects on hydrogen concentration, hydrogen diffusion and material microstructure in hydrogenated amorphous silicon films deposited on crystalline silicon substrates are compared. For laser annealing, a 6 W green (532 nm) continuous wave laser with 100 µm focus diameter was applied and samples of about 1 cm2 were scanned in ambient with a line distance of 50 µm and at a speed of 1 – 100 mm/s. Hydrogen content and microstructure were measured by infrared spectroscopy, and hydrogen diffusion was investigated by secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) measurements of depth profiles of deuterium and hydrogen in layered structures of deuterated and hydrogenated material. The results show that in both annealing experiments hydrogen diffuses predominantly in form of atoms although some formation of H2 molecules cannot be excluded. By comparison of laser and oven treatment, an effective temperature describing the laser treated state can be defined. Furthermore, the temperature of the thin silicon film during laser treatment is estimated.

Silicon heterojunction solar cells (SHJ) with thin intrinsic layers are well known for their high efficiencies. A promising way to further enhance their excellent characteristics is to enable more light to enter the crystalline silicon (c-Si) absorber of the cell while maintaining a simple cell configuration. Our approach is to replace the amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) emitter layer with a more transparent nanocrystalline silicon oxide (nc-SiOx:H) layer. In this work, we focus on optimizing the p-type nc-SiOx:H material properties, grown by radio frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (rf PECVD), on an amorphous silicon layer.

20 nm thick nanocrystalline layers were successfully grown on a 5 nm a-Si:H layer. The effect of different ratios of trimethylboron to silane gas flow rates on the material properties were investigated, yielding an optimized material with a conductivity in the lateral direction of 7.9×10-4 S/cm combined with a band gap of E04 = 2.33 eV. Despite its larger thickness as compared to a conventional window a-Si:H p-layer, the novel layer stack of a-Si:H(i)/nc-SiOx:H(p) shows significantly enhanced transmission compared to the stack with a conventional a-Si:H(p) emitter. Altogether, the chosen material exhibits promising characteristics for implementation in SHJ solar cells.

Silicon nanocrystals are photoluminescent materials with a tremendous scope in various niche applications especially the generation of hybrid materials. Our approach for the preparation of stimuli responsive SiNC hybrid materials is based on the application of surface-initiated group-transfer polymerization. As a first step we used photografting of ethyleneglycol di(methacrylate). Then we impregnated remaining methyl acrylic surface groups with the catalyst Cp2YCH2TMS(thf). We performed polymerization studies regarding catalyst and diethyl vinylphosphonate (DEVP) concentrations, highlighting that surface grafting is dependent upon catalyst concentration and independent from added monomer amount. Furthermore, we successfully polymerized methyl methacrylate, dimethyl vinylphosphonate and diisopropyl vinylphosphonate from the SiNC surface.

Interest in next generation devices that integrate photonic and electronic functionality is focused on extending the capability of existing group IV material systems while maintaining compatibility with existing processing methods and procedures. One such class of materials which has been recently developed, Ge1-x-ySixSny ternary alloys, is being investigated for integrated Si photonics, solar cell materials, telecommunication applications, and for IR photodetectors. These alloys afford the opportunity to decouple the band gap energies and lattice constants over a wide range of values, potentially yielding direct and indirect character that can be coupled with a variety of different substrates dependent on composition.

In the present work, we report X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) characterization of Ge1-x-ySixSny alloys grown by gas-source molecular beam epitaxy (GS-MBE) and investigate Ni- Ge1-x-ySiySny bilayer reactions with x-ray diffraction (XRD). The surface oxidation of samples stored in ambient conditions were measured with XPS. High resolution spectra showed chemical shifts of Ge, Si and Sn peaks consistent with Ge-O, Si-O and Sn-O bond formation. Depth profiling indicates a homogeneous composition throughout the bulk of the sample with surface oxidation confined to the top few nanometers. A highly tin-enriched layer was indicated at the surface of the material, while silicon was observed to be either enriched or depleted at the surface depending on the sample.

To study the interaction of the ternary with an ohmic contact commonly used in device fabrication processes today, nickel layers 30 nm thick were evaporated onto the alloys and were annealed in nitrogen up to 400 °C for periods as long as 1 hour. The XRD data show that the Ni2(Ge1-x-ySixSny) phase forms first followed by Ni(Ge1-x-ySixSny).

We report on electrical conductivity and noise measurements made on p-type hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin films prepared by Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD). The temperature dependent electrical conductivity can be described by the Mott Variable Range Hopping mechanism. The noise at temperatures lower than ∼ 400K is dominated by a 1/f component which follows the Hooge model and correlates with the Mott conductivity. At high temperatures there is an appreciable G-R noise component.

Periodic arrays of low-aspect ratio silicon nanopillars strongly reduce front surface reflection over a broad wavelength range. In this study, we numerically simulate the reflection of light for thick crystalline silicon substrates nanostructured through a combination of silica nanosphere lithography (SNL) and metal-assisted chemical etching (MaCE), producing ordered arrays of nanopillars with hexagonal periodicity. Using statistical methods, we show that the simulated measurements are in good agreement with the spectrophotometry measurements of the fabricated nanopillars.

We report effective passivation of silicon surfaces by heating single crystalline silicon substrates in liquid water at 110°C for 1 h. High values of photo-induced effective minority carrier lifetime τeff in the range from 1.9x10-4 to 1.8x10-3 s were obtained for the n-type samples with resistivity in the range from 1.7 to 18.1 Ωcm. τeff ranged from 8.3x10-4 to 3.1x10-3 s and from 1.2x10-4 to 6.0x10-4 s over the area of 4 inch sized 17.0 Ωcm n- and 15.0 Ωcm p-type samples, respectively. The heat treatment in liquid water at 110°C for 1 h resulted in low surface recombination velocities ranging from 7 to 34 cm/s and from 49 to 250 cm/s for those 4 inch sized n- and p-type samples, respectively. The thickness of the passivation layer was estimated to be approximate only 0.7 nm. Metal-insulator-semiconductor type solar cell was demonstrated with Al and Au metal formation on the passivated surface. Rectified current voltage and solar cell characteristics were observed. Open circuit voltage of 0.47 V was obtained under AM 1.5 light illumination at 100 mW/cm2.

Substantial superheating of single-crystal Si films at and near the bottom Si/SiO2 interface was observed. This was accomplished via back-side irradiation of a (100) single-crystal Si film on a quartz substrate using an excimer-laser pulse. The spatiotemporal details of the melting transition were tracked in situ using surface-side and substrate-side transient reflectance measurements, and the one-dimensional thermal profile evolution within the solid film during the heating period was numerically computed using the experimentally extracted temporal profile of the incident beam and temperature-dependent optical and thermal parameters of the materials. A simple lower-bound estimation identifies that superheating in excess of 100 K was attained within Si along the bottom (100)-Si/SiO2 interface even at moderate beam energy densities.

Thin films of amorphous silicon with nanocrystalline silicon inclusions are fabricated using a dual plasma PECVD co-deposition system. Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction confirmed the crystallinity of the embedded nanocrystals as well as their diameter, which is varied from 4.3 nm to 17.5 nm. The dark conductivity of the films is highly dependent on the crystal fraction, with a maximum room temperature conductivity found for a crystal concentration of 5.5%, well below the percolation threshold. Proton irradiation at energies of 217 MeV with a total fluence of 5 x1012 protons/cm2 caused no significant radiation damage. The enhancement of the conductivity, along with the absence of radiation damage suggests this material may be a candidate for use in the next generation of particle detectors in the Compact Muon Solenoid in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

We have experimentally investigated the anisotropy of Si-SiO2 interfacial energy by leveraging the mixed-phase solidification (MPS) method. By examining the microstructure evolution resulting from partial-melting-and-solidification cycles, and interpreting the changes in the surface-orientation distribution of the grains in terms of the thermodynamic model, we have identified the orientation-dependent hierarchical order of Si-SiO2 interfacial energies, σ{hkl}, as: σ{100} < σ{310} < σ{113} < σ{112} < σ{221} < σ{210}∼σ{331} < σ{111}, σ{110}.

This paper describes the characteristics of damage, introduced under different conditions of diamond wire sawing, on the Si wafer surfaces. The damage occurs in the form of frozen-in dislocations, phase changes, and microcracks. The in-depth damage was determined by conventional ways such as TEM, SEM and angle-polishing/defect-etching, which only provide local information. We have also applied a new technique based on sequential measurement of the minority carrier lifetime after etching thin layers from the surfaces to determine average damage depth and its in-depth distribution. The lateral spatial damage variations, which seem to be mainly related to wire reciprocation process, were observed by photoluminescence and lifetime mapping. Our results show a strong correlation of damage depth on the diamond grit size and wire usage.

We have investigated the solidified microstructure of nucleation-generated grains obtained via complete melting of Si films on SiO2 at high nucleation temperatures. This was achieved using a high-temperature-capable hot stage in conjunction with excimer laser irradiation. As predicted by the direct-growth model that considers (1) the evolution in the temperature of the solidifying interface and (2) the subsequent modes of growth (consisting of amorphous, defective, and epitaxial) as key factors, we were able to observe the appearance of “normal” grains that possess a single-crystal core area. These grains, which are in contrast to previously reported flower-shaped grains that fully make up the microstructure of the solidified films obtained via irradiation at lower preheating temperatures (and amongst which these “normal” grains emerge), indicate that epitaxial growth of nucleated crystals must have taken place within the grains. We discuss the implications of our findings regarding (1) the validity of the direct-growth model, (2) the nature of the heterogeneous nucleation mechanism, and (3) the alternative explanations and assumptions that have been previously employed in order to explain the microstructure of Si films obtained via nucleation and growth within the complete melting regime.

Incorporation of properly designed nanostructures in solar cells improves light trapping and consequently their power conversion efficiencies. Due to its unique structure, a silicon nanowire (SiNW) matrix provides excellent light trapping and thus offers a promising approach for cost-effective, stable and efficient silicon thin film photovoltaics. Moreover, by decoupling the light absorption and carrier collection directions, radial junction solar cells built around the SiNWs allow the use of very thin active layers. As a matter of fact, radial PIN junctions with 9.2% power conversion efficiency have already been demonstrated on glass substrates with only 100 nm thick intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon layers. The most straightforward way to further improve the short circuit current density is to use an active layer with a lower band gap. In this work, the performances of devices with two different low band gap materials, e.g., hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si:H) and hydrogenated amorphous silicon germanium alloy (a-SiGe:H) are presented. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a-SiGe:H radial junction solar cell.