Influence of Substrate Temperature and Hydrogen Dilution Ratio on the Properties of Nanocrystalline Silicon Thin Films Grown by Hot-Wire Chemical Vapor Deposition: Preprint

Conference · Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 EST 2003

OSTI ID:15004058

Moutinho, H R; Jiang, C -S; Nelson, B; Xu, Y; Perkins, J; To, B; Jones, K M; Romero, M J; Al-Jassim, M M

We have studied the influence of substrate temperature and hydrogen dilution ratio on the properties of silicon thin films deposited on single-crystal silicon and glass substrates. We varied the initial substrate temperature from 200 to 400C and the dilution ratio from 10 to 100. We also studied the effectiveness of the use of a seed layer to increase the crystallinity of the films. The films were analyzed by atomic force microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, and transmission and scanning electron microscopy. We found that as the dilution ratio is increased, the films go from amorphous, to a mixture of amorphous and crystalline, to nanocrystalline. The effect of substrate temperature is to increase the amount of crystallinity in the film for a given dilution ratio. We found that the use of a seed layer has limited effects and is important only for low values of dilution ratio and substrate temperature, when the films have large amounts of the amorphous phase.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO.
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-99GO10337
• OSTI ID: 15004058
• Report Number(s): NREL/CP-520-33929
• Conference Information: Prepared for the 2003 Materials Research Society Spring Meeting, 21-25 April 2003, San Francisco, California
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPY
CHEMICAL VAPOR DEPOSITION
DILUTION
GLASS
HOT-WIRE CHEMICAL VAPOR DEPOSITION
HYDROGEN
HYDROGEN DILUTION RATIO
MIXTURES
NANOCRYSTALLINE
PV
RAMAN SPECTROSCOPY
SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPY
SEEDS
SILICON
SILICON THIN FILMS
Solar Energy - Photovoltaics
SUBSTRATE TEMPERATURE
SUBSTRATES
THIN FILMS
X-RAY DIFFRACTION