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In this study, undoped hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin films deposited under moderate dilution ratios of silane by radio frequency plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (RF-PECVD) have been investigated using steady-state photoconductivity and improved dual beam photoconductivity (DBP) methods to identify changes in multiple gap states in annealed and light-soaked states. Four different gap states were identified in annealed state named as A, B, C, and X states. The peak energy positions of these Gaussian distributions are consistent with those recently identified by Fourier transform photocurrent spectroscopy (FTPS). After in situ light soaking, their density increases with different rates as peak energy positions and half-widths remain unaffected. The electron-occupied A and B states located below the dark Fermi level and their density and ratios in the annealed and light-soaked states correlate well with those defects detected by time-domain pulsed electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) experiments. The A, B, and X states located closer to the middle of the bandgap anneal out at room temperature in dark and define the "fast" states. However, the C states show no sign of room temperature annealing such that they must define the "slow" states in undoped a-Si:H. The results found in this study indicate that the anisotropic disordered network is a more appropriate model than previously proposed defect models based on the continuous random network to define the nanostructure of undoped a-Si:H, where multiple defects, D0 and non-D0 defects, can be identified by using the improved DBP method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crystalline silicon tandem devices with perovskites, CIGS, and nanocrystalline silicon, as well as the TOPCon design, are incompatible with the conventional pyramidal surface texture of silicon. This is a result of crack formation in nano to polycrystalline growth on large sharp surface features. In this work, three texturing approaches are investigated, using alkaline and/or acidic wet chemical etches, that can lead to the crack‐free growth of nano to polycrystalline materials on textured surfaces. In this work, we show that without acidic smoothening, the fraction of <111> pyramidal surface coverage has to remain relatively small to prevent crack formation during crystalline growth on these surfaces. Applying an acidic etch as a function of time continuously smoothens surface features. This shifts the reflection to wider scattering angles and results in higher total reflected intensity with respect to the conventional texture, making it an interesting option for a wide variety of tandem pv applications. Finally, we demonstrate crater‐like features on a <100> monocrystalline silicon surface using an etching process including a sacrificial layer. These craters increase light scattering into wider angles, but to a lesser extent than the former approach. In terms of passivation, we demonstrate the positive effect of a post deposition hydrogen treatment. Initial dilution of the silane plasma improves passivation on a <111> surface, but is detrimental to passivation on a <100> surface, likely because the hydrogen dilution results in epitaxial growth at the c‐Si/a‐Si:H hetero‐interface. A minority carrier lifetime of over 3 ms has been achieved for all texturing approaches, after deposition of a 15 nm a‐Si:H layer on both sides of the wafer, for different a‐Si:H deposition and annealing schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thin oxide interlayers are commonly added to the back reflector of thin-film silicon solar cells to increase their current. To gain more insight in the enhancement mechanism, we tested different back reflector designs consisting of aluminium-doped zinc oxide (ZnO:Al) and/or hydrogenated silicon oxide (SiOx:H) interlayers with different metals (silver, aluminium, and chromium) in standard p-i-n a-Si:H solar cells. We use a unique inverse modeling approach to show that in most back reflectors the internal metal reflectance is lower than expected theoretically. However, the metal reflectance is increased by the addition of an oxide interlayer. Our experiments demonstrate that SiOx:H forms an interesting alternative interlayer because unlike the more commonly used ZnO:Al it can be deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition and it does not reduce the fill factor. The largest efficiency enhancement is obtained with a double interlayer of SiOx:H and ZnO:Al. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon films (μc-Si:H) deposited at high deposition rates (∼2 nm/s) by means of the very-high-frequency (VHF) deposition technique in the high pressure depletion regime have been integrated into single junction p-i-n solar cells. It is demonstrated that μc-Si:H solar cells can be optimized using a twofold approach. First the bulk properties, deposited under steady-state plasma conditions, are optimized by monitoring the presence of crystalline grain boundaries in μc-Si:H. These hydrogenated crystalline grain boundaries can easily be detected via the crystalline surface hydrides contribution to the narrow high stretching modes by infrared transmission spectroscopy. The crystalline grain boundaries suffer from postdeposition oxidation which results in a reduced red response of the solar cell. The absence of these crystalline surfaces in an as-deposited μc-Si:H matrix reflects the device grade microcrystalline bulk material. Second, the prevention of silane backdiffusion from the background during the initial growth is a necessity to deposit a uniform μc-Si:H phase over the entire film thickness. The initial growth is optimized while preserving the optimized bulk properties deposited under steady-state conditions, using initial profiling of plasma parameters such as the silane flow and the VHF power density. Solar cell devices with efficiency of 8.0% at a μc-Si:H deposition rate of 2.0 nm/s are obtained using the presented approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ion-bombardment induced surface and bulk processes during hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) deposition have been studied by employing an external rf substrate bias (ERFSB) in a remote Ar–H2–SiH4 expanding thermal plasma (ETP). The comparison of the ETP chemical vapor deposition without and with ERFSB enables us to identify some important ion-surface and ion-bulk interactions responsible for film property modifications. Employing ERFSB creates an additional growth flux and the low energetic ions deliver an extra 5–10 eV per Si atom deposited at typical deposition rates of 10–42 Å/s which is a sufficient ion dose to modify the film growth. It is demonstrated that the extra surface and bulk process during a-Si:H growth, induced by the additional ion bombardment, provide an extra degree of freedom to manipulate the a-Si:H microstructure. An ion-film interaction diagram is introduced, which is used to discriminate ion-surface interactions from ion-bulk interactions. According to this ion-film interaction diagram, the a-Si:H grown with ERFSB can be roughly classified in three phases. In phase I the only ion-surface process activated is Si surface atom displacement. In phase II also ion-induced Si bulk atom displacement is sufficiently activated, whereas in phase III ion-induced Si atom sputtering is significant. Phase I is characterized by a reduction in the nanosized void density, a reduction in defect density, and an improvement of the photoresponse. We find that the Si surface displacement is the process responsible for various improvements of the material properties via the enhanced surface migration. Phase II is characterized by an enhancement of vacancy incorporation. In accordance with the introduced ion-film interaction diagram, the Si atom bulk displacement process is responsible for the incorporation of additional vacancies. Phase III is characterized by the decrease in growth flux and the increase in void density. The significant contribution of ion-sputtering processes is responsible for the effects observed in phase III. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The properties of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) deposited at very high growth rates (6-80 nm/s) by means of a remote Ar-H[sub 2]-SiH[sub 4] plasma have been investigated as a function of the H[sub 2] flow in the Ar-H[sub 2] operated plasma source. Both the structural and optoelectronic properties of the films improve with increasing H[sub 2] flow, and a-Si:H suitable for the application in solar cells has been obtained at deposition rates of 10 nm/s for high H[sub 2] flows and a substrate temperature of 400 °C. The "optimized" material has a hole drift mobility which is about a factor of 10 higher than for standard a-Si:H. The electron drift mobility, however, is slightly lower than for standard a-Si:H. Furthermore, preliminary results on solar cells with intrinsic a-Si:H deposited at 7 nm/s are presented. Relating the film properties to the SiH[sub 4] dissociation reactions reveals that optimum film quality is obtained for conditions where H from the plasma source governs SiH[sub 4] dissociation and where SiH[sub 3] contributes dominantly to film growth. Conditions where ion-induced dissociation reactions of SiH[sub 4] prevail and where the contribution of SiH[sub 3] to film growth is much smaller lead to inferior film properties. A large contribution of very reactive (poly)silane radicals is suggested as the reason for this inferior film quality. Furthermore, a comparison with film properties and process conditions of other a-Si:H deposition techniques is presented. © 2001 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An in situ single wavelength HeNe rotating ellipsometry study of high rate (∼80 Å s[sup -1]) hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) deposition using an expanding thermal plasma is presented. An optical growth model is used to simulate the measured ellispometric trajectories similar to models used for low rate a-Si:H growth in the literature. The in situ growth at high growth rates was studied as function of the substrate temperature. The refractive index n (at 632.8 nm) increases with increasing temperature corresponding to an increase in the density of the films. The in situ extinction coefficient k (at 632.8 nm) increases with increasing substrate temperature due to a smaller optical band gap and due to an increase in indirect absorption. It is shown that the ellipsometry setup in combination with optical modeling enables us to monitor the surface roughness evolution during deposition and to obtain the dynamic scaling exponent β for postinitial growth. © 2000 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]