Deposition phase diagrams for Si1−xGex:H from real time spectroscopic ellipsometry

Enhanced Growth Rate and Silane Utilization in Amorphous Silicon and Nanocrystalline-Silicon Solar Cell Deposition via Gas Phase Additives

“…These types of structural transitions and growth evolutions have been observed for Si:H prepared under a variety of deposition conditions 1 and its alloys with germanium 19 (Si 1-x Ge x :H) and carbon 20 (Si 1-x C x :H). The comparison of the behavior of these transitions as a function of single deposition parameters has been used to produce so-called deposition phase diagrams or growth evolution diagrams, which have guided the development of optimization principles in Si:H-based PV.…”

Influence of microstructure and composition on hydrogenated silicon thin film properties for uncooled microbolometer applications

“…The R ¼ 500 film and all films prepared at lower R exhibit an amorphous roughening transition [a ! a], 10,[21][22][23][24][25] which is denoted by an increase in surface roughness after the initial coalescence of clusters on the substrate and subsequent smoothening, typically at bulk layer thicknesses 100 Å for films prepared under these conditions. The films remain amorphous both before and after the [a !…”

Mean Free Path of Photoelectronic Excitations in Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon and Silicon Germanium Alloy Semiconductors

“…For plasma‐enhanced chemical vapor deposited (PECVD) a‐Si:H‐based materials developed for such device applications, spectra in the complex optical response in the form of the complex dielectric function ( ε = ε 1 + iε 2 ) obtained by in situ real time spectroscopic ellipsometry (RTSE) have been reported to vary as functions of deposition and processing conditions, [ 11,14,16,17,21,23–26,32–34,41,45–51 ] alloying with carbon or germanium, [ 45–50 ] post‐deposition plasma or annealing treatments, [ 28,49 ] accumulated film thickness, [ 21,51 ] and underlying substrate material. [ 14,51 ] A reduction in the width of the primary absorption feature evident in ε 2 centered at photon energies near ≈3.5–3.9 eV is often attributed to increased relative order in the material and has been directly linked to improved performance of thin film solar cells with a‐Si:H‐based absorber layers.…”

“…[12,13,15,[17][18][19][20] Incorporation of either carbon or germanium into a-Si:H also alters the film resistivity, temperature coefficient of resistance, and 1/f noise, which impact microbolometer performance. [30][31][32][34][35][36][37] For plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposited (PECVD) a-Si:H-based materials developed for such device applications, spectra in the complex optical response in the form of the complex dielectric function (ε ¼ ε 1 þ iε 2 ) obtained by in situ real time spectroscopic ellipsometry (RTSE) have been reported to vary as functions of deposition and processing conditions, [11,14,16,17,21,[23][24][25][26][32][33][34]41,[45][46][47][48][49][50][51] alloying with carbon or germanium, [45][46][47][48][49][50] post-deposition plasma or annealing treatments, [28,49] accumulated film thickness, [21,51] and underlying substrate material.…”