High Growth Rate Deposition of Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon-Germanium Films and Devices Using ECR-PECVD
Abstract
Hydrogenated amorphous silicon germanium films (a-SiGe:H) and devices have been extensively studied because of the tunable band gap for matching the solar spectrum and mature the fabrication techniques. a-SiGe:H thin film solar cells have great potential for commercial manufacture because of very low cost and adaptability to large-scale manufacturing. Although it has been demonstrated that a-SiGe:H thin films and devices with good quality can be produced successfully, some issues regarding growth chemistry have remained yet unexplored, such as the hydrogen and inert-gas dilution, bombardment effect, and chemical annealing, to name a few. The alloying of the SiGe introduces above an order-of-magnitude higher defect density, which degrades the performance of the a-SiGe:H thin film solar cells. This degradation becomes worse when high growth-rate deposition is required. Preferential attachment of hydrogen to silicon, clustering of Ge and Si, and columnar structure and buried dihydride radicals make the film intolerably bad. The work presented here uses the Electron-Cyclotron-Resonance Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (ECR-PECVD) technique to fabricate a-SiGe:H films and devices with high growth rates. Helium gas, together with a small amount of H 2, was used as the plasma species. Thickness, optical band gap, conductivity, Urbach energy, mobility-lifetime product, I-V curve, and quantummore »
- Authors:
-
- Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Ames Lab., Ames, IA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 803355
- Report Number(s):
- IS-T 2383
TRN: US200302%%167
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-Eng-82
- Resource Type:
- Thesis/Dissertation
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: TH: Thesis (Ph.D.); Submitted to Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (US); PBD: 31 May 2002
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 14 SOLAR ENERGY; 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; 42 ENGINEERING; CHEMICAL VAPOR DEPOSITION; DEPOSITION; DILUTION; GERMANIUM; HELIUM IONS; HYDROGEN IONS; QUANTUM EFFICIENCY; SILICON; SOLAR CELLS; THIN FILMS
Citation Formats
Liu, Yong. High Growth Rate Deposition of Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon-Germanium Films and Devices Using ECR-PECVD. United States: N. p., 2002.
Web. doi:10.2172/803355.
Liu, Yong. High Growth Rate Deposition of Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon-Germanium Films and Devices Using ECR-PECVD. United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/803355
Liu, Yong. Tue .
"High Growth Rate Deposition of Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon-Germanium Films and Devices Using ECR-PECVD". United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/803355. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/803355.
@article{osti_803355,
title = {High Growth Rate Deposition of Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon-Germanium Films and Devices Using ECR-PECVD},
author = {Liu, Yong},
abstractNote = {Hydrogenated amorphous silicon germanium films (a-SiGe:H) and devices have been extensively studied because of the tunable band gap for matching the solar spectrum and mature the fabrication techniques. a-SiGe:H thin film solar cells have great potential for commercial manufacture because of very low cost and adaptability to large-scale manufacturing. Although it has been demonstrated that a-SiGe:H thin films and devices with good quality can be produced successfully, some issues regarding growth chemistry have remained yet unexplored, such as the hydrogen and inert-gas dilution, bombardment effect, and chemical annealing, to name a few. The alloying of the SiGe introduces above an order-of-magnitude higher defect density, which degrades the performance of the a-SiGe:H thin film solar cells. This degradation becomes worse when high growth-rate deposition is required. Preferential attachment of hydrogen to silicon, clustering of Ge and Si, and columnar structure and buried dihydride radicals make the film intolerably bad. The work presented here uses the Electron-Cyclotron-Resonance Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (ECR-PECVD) technique to fabricate a-SiGe:H films and devices with high growth rates. Helium gas, together with a small amount of H2, was used as the plasma species. Thickness, optical band gap, conductivity, Urbach energy, mobility-lifetime product, I-V curve, and quantum efficiency were characterized during the process of pursuing good materials. The microstructure of the a-(Si,Ge):H material was probed by Fourier-Transform Infrared spectroscopy. They found that the advantages of using helium as the main plasma species are: (1) high growth rate--the energetic helium ions break the reactive gas more efficiently than hydrogen ions; (2) homogeneous growth--heavy helium ions impinging on the surface promote the surface mobility of the reactive radicals, so that heteroepitaxy growth as clustering of Ge and Si, columnar structure are reduced; (3) surface hydrogen removal--heavier and more energetic helium ions break the Si-H much easier than hydrogen ions. The preferential attachment of Si-H to Ge-H is reduced. They also found that with the small amount of hydrogen put into the plasma, the superior properties of a-(Si,Ge):H made from pure hydrogen dilution plasma were still maintained. These hydrogen ions help to remove the subsurface weakly bonded hydrogen and buried hydrogen. They also help to passivate the Ge-dangling bond.},
doi = {10.2172/803355},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/803355},
journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {2002},
month = {1}
}