Laser Doping and Recrystallization for Amorphous Silicon Films by Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition

2005 ◽  
Vol 475-479 ◽  
pp. 3791-3794
Author(s):  
Dong Sing Wuu ◽  
Shui Yang Lien ◽  
Jui Hao Wang ◽  
Hsin-Yuan Mao ◽  
In-Cha Hsieh ◽  
...  

One of the most challenging problems to develop polycrystalline silicon thin-film solar cells is the growth of crystalline silicon on foreign, low-cost and low-temperature substrates. In this paper, a laser doping technique was developed for the plasma-deposited amorphous silicon film. A process combination of recrystallization and dopant diffusion (phosphorous or boron) was achieved simultaneously by the laser annealing process. The doping precursor was synthesized by a sol-gel method and was spin-coated on the sample. After laser irradiation, the grain size of the doped polycrystalline silicon was examined to be about 0.5~1.0 µm. The concentrations of 2×1019 and 5× 1018 cm-3 with Hall mobilities of 92.6 and 37.5 cm²/V-s were achieved for the laser-diffused phosphorous- and boron-type polysilicon films, respectively.

1999 ◽  
Vol 587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosaria A. Puglisi ◽  
Hiroshi Tanabe ◽  
Claudine M. Chen ◽  
Harry A. Atwater ◽  
Emanuele Rimini

AbstractWe investigated the formation of large-grain polycrystalline silicon films on glass substrates for application in low-cost thin film crystalline silicon solar cells. Since use of glass substrates constrains process temperatures, our approach to form large-grain polycrystalline silicon templates is selective nucleation and solid phase epitaxy (SNSPE). In this process, selective crystallization of an initially amorphous silicon film, at lithographically predetermined sites, enables grain sizes larger than those observed via random crystallization. Selective heterogeneous nucleation centers were created on undoped, 75 nm thick, amorphous silicon films, by masked implantation of Ni islands, followed by annealing at temperatures below 600 °. At this temperature, the Ni precipitates into NiSi2 particles that catalyze the transition from the amorphous to the crystalline Si phase. Seeded crystallization begins at the metal islands and continues via lateral solid phase epitaxy (SPE), thus obtaining crystallized regions of several tens of square microns in one hour. We have studied the dependence of the crystallization rate on the Ni-implanted dose in the seed, in the 5×1015/cm3 - 1016/cm3range. The large grained polycrystalline Si films were then used as a substrate for molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) depositions of 1 [.proportional]m thick Si layers. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis showed a strong correlation between the substrate morphology and the deposited layer. The layer presented a large grain morphology, with sizes of about 4 [.proportional]m.


1998 ◽  
Vol 536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. J. Song ◽  
W. A. Anderson

AbstractLow temperature growth of hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon film (nc-Si:H) by microwave electron cyclotron resonance chemical vapor deposition has been performed employing a double dilution of silane, using a He carrier for SiH4 and its subsequent dilution by H2. A series of Raman spectra and AFM pictures has shown that a very thin (<100Å) nc-Si:H layer initially grown with high H2 dilution on a glass substrate can serve as a seed layer for the subsequent growth of the film with lower H2 dilution, which results in a higher crystallinity of the whole film. The role of this thin layer in low temperature junction formation has been examined by the insertion of the layer between the interface of both nc-Si:H (deposited with lower H2 dilution)/c-Si and a-Si:H/c-Si heterojunction type photovoltaic cells. This is to address the knowledge that the device's performance is strongly influenced by the quality of the thin film silicon/crystalline silicon interface. Various thicknesses and H2 dilution ratios have been used to find the optimized condition providing the best performance of the cells. The maximum efficiency of 10.5% (Jsc=35.1mA/cm2, Voc=0.51V and FF=0.59) has been obtained, without an AR coating, by the successive deposition of nc-Si:H film with four different H2 dilution ratios on a crystalline silicon substrate. This is potentially a low-temperature, low-cost solar cell fabrication process.


2007 ◽  
Vol 989 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tining Su ◽  
Tong Ju ◽  
P. Craig Taylor ◽  
Pauls Stradins ◽  
Yueqin Xu ◽  
...  

AbstractSolid-phase crystallization and the subsequent re-hydrogenation of the amorphous silicon thin films provides a low cost approach for thin-film crystalline Si:H-based photovoltaic devices. During the hydrogen effusion, significant lattice reconstruction occurs, as hydrogen is driven out of the film, accompanied by creation and migration of a large number of dangling bonds. We used electron-spin-resonance (ESR) to study evolution of the local order surrounding these dangling bonds during crystallization. When samples made by both plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and the and hot wire CVD (HWCVD) are heated to 560°C, hydrogen effuses within 30 min, giving rise to H-effused defect densities of about 5x1018 cm-3. Further heating at 560°C results in crystallizati°n in the HWCVD sample after about 200 min. On the other hand, PECVD samples crystallize only when heated up to 580°C, and then only after much longer times (Dt ~ 1300 min) [1,2]. ESR defects in both samples persist at the 5x1018 cm-3 level as long as the sample remains amorphous during the grain nucleation period. As the crystallites appear, the defect densities gradually decrease and saturate at about 3x1017 cm-3 as the crystallization is completed, both in HWCVD and PECVD samples.In the H-effused states before crystallization, the ESR signals for both the HWCVD and PECVD samples show significant exchange-narrowing, suggesting that the defects are probably clustered. As the sample crystallizes, the defect clustering largely disappears, yet the line-widths in fully crystallized films are somewhat narrower than those in typical micro-crystalline silicon thin films as reported earlier [3]. This difference is probably due the specific structures of the grain boundaries in the present study. The effect of re-hydrogenation on both the H-effused amorphous and crystallized states will be discussed.


Crystals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 237
Author(s):  
M. Abul Hossion ◽  
B. M. Arora

Boron-doped polycrystalline silicon film was synthesized using hot wire chemical vapor deposition technique for possible application in photonics devices. To investigate the effect of substrate, we considered Si/SiO2, glass/ITO/TiO2, Al2O3, and nickel tungsten alloy strip for the growth of polycrystalline silicon films. Scanning electron microscopy, optical reflectance, optical transmittance, X-ray diffraction, and I-V measurements were used to characterize the silicon films. The resistivity of the film was 1.3 × 10−2 Ω-cm for the polycrystalline silicon film, which was suitable for using as a window layer in a solar cell. These films have potential uses in making photodiode and photosensing devices.


1996 ◽  
Vol 424 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. E. I. Schropp ◽  
K. F. Feenstra ◽  
C. H. M. Van Der Werf ◽  
J. Holleman ◽  
H. Meiling

AbstractWe present the first thin film transistors (TFTs) incorporating a low hydrogen content (5 - 9 at.-%) amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) layer deposited by the Hot-Wire Chemical Vapor Deposition (HWCVD) technique. This demonstrates the possibility of utilizing this material in devices. The deposition rate by Hot-Wire CVD is an order of magnitude higher than by Plasma Enhanced CVD. The switching ratio for TFTs based on HWCVD a-Si:H is better than 5 orders of magnitude. The field-effect mobility as determined from the saturation regime of the transfer characteristics is still quite poor. The interface with the gate dielectric needs further optimization. Current crowding effects, however, could be completely eliminated by a H2 plasma treatment of the HW-deposited intrinsic layer. In contrast to the PECVD reference device, the HWCVD device appears to be almost unsensitive to bias voltage stressing. This shows that HW-deposited material might be an approach to much more stable devices.


1993 ◽  
Vol 297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Byung Chul Ahn ◽  
Jeong Hyun Kim ◽  
Dong Gil Kim ◽  
Byeong Yeon Moon ◽  
Kwang Nam Kim ◽  
...  

The hydrogenation effect was studied in the fabrication of amorphous silicon thin film transistor using APCVD technique. The inverse staggered type a-Si TFTs were fabricated with the deposited a-Si and SiO2 films by the atmospheric pressure (AP) CVD. The field effect mobility of the fabricated a-Si TFT is 0.79 cm2/Vs and threshold voltage is 5.4V after post hydrogenation. These results can be applied to make low cost a-Si TFT array using an in-line APCVD system.


2007 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norihito Kawaguchi ◽  
Ryusuke Kawakami ◽  
Ken-ichiro Nishida ◽  
Naoya Yamamoto ◽  
Miyuki Masaki ◽  
...  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document