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Electronic Properties and Device Applications of Hot-Wire CVD Polycrystalline Silicon Films
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
Abstract
Polycrystalline silicon films (5 to 30 μm thick) have been deposited on glass substrates at low temperatures (400–550 °C) with a rate of 15 Å/s by hot-wire chemical vapour deposition (HWCVD). The homogeneity of the deposited layer is ±5% on a 8 cm diameter substrate. The films have columnar microstructure and a textured surface. The undoped films (carrier concentration, 1011 cm−3) have a resistivity of 105-106 Ω-cm, activation energy of 0.50 ± 0.05 eV and Hall mobility of 14 ± 4 cm2 /V.s. By in situ gas phase doping, resistivity can be varied by six to seven orders of magnitude. Incorporation of dopant atoms such as boron into the film, strongly influences its morphological and crystallographic structure. The mobility lifetime product of undoped films is low (10−8 cm2/V), possibly due to the presence of a high density of dangling bonds defects and broad band-tails. This product can be improved by a factor of 5 to 10 by using in-situ hydrogen passivation in the same reactor at lower temperature (350–400 °C) within one hour. The results of many complementary experiments suggest that hydrogen treatment mainly improves carrier mobility by a factor of 3 to 4 by passivating extended defects. Preliminary results on application of these types of materials in unoptimized P-I-N solar cells on c-Si and glass substrates are presented.
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- Copyright © Materials Research Society 1997
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