Role of oxygen and nitrogen in n-type microcrystalline silicon carbide grown by hot wire chemical vapor deposition

Abstract

N-type microcrystalline silicon carbide (μc-SiC:H(n)) deposited by hot wire chemical vapor deposition provides advantageous opto-electronic properties for window layer material in silicon-based thin-film solar cells and silicon heterojunction solar cells. So far, it is known that the dark conductivity (σd) increases with the increase in the crystallinity of μc-SiC:H(n)films. However, due to the fact that no active doping source is used, the mechanism of electrical transport in these films is still under debate. It is suggested that unintentional doping by atmospheric oxygen (O) or nitrogen (N) contamination plays an important role in the electrical transport. To investigate the impact of O and N, we incorporated O and N in μc-SiC:H(n) films and compared the influence on the microstructural, electronic, and optical properties. We discovered that, in addition to increasing the crystallinity, it is also possible to increase the σd by several orders of magnitude by increasing the O-concentration or the N-concentration in the films. Combining a high concentration of O and N, along with a high crystallinity in the film, we optimized the σd to a maximum of 5 S/cm.

The Influence of AlN Intermediate Layer on the Structural and Chemical Properties of SiC Thin Films Produced by High-Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering

“…These results corroborate with the RBS analysis presented in Figure 1a. In addition, Pomaska et al presented studies on the unintentional doping by oxygen contamination where they demonstrated that the oxygen incorporation was influenced the microstructural, electronic, and optical properties of the SiC films [39]. It has been shown that oxygen incorporation during film deposition increases the crystallinity of SiC films, consistent with findings observed in this work.…”

Prediction of Site Preference of Implanted Transition Metal Dopants in Rock-salt Oxides

“…Among various ways available, ion-beam implantation is a very reliable and popular technique to incorporate impurities in a host lattice [1][2][3] as it provides controllable selective area doping in the target materials [4]. The most widely used implanted defects in semiconductors include P, B, As [5][6][7][8][9] and Si + [10,11] implanted thermal oxide films on crystalline Si for photoluminiscence, modified refractive index and optical waveguides, O and N in SiC [12], P [13], B [14], Si [15][16][17] and Er [18,19] in SiO 2 , Au [20], Cu [21] in SiO 2 , Pd in Si [22] and As in GaAs [23] for tuning optical and physical properties. Doped rock-salt oxides (for example MgO) have been studied extensively [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35] for their applications in optical and magnetic sensors, switching devices and as dilute magnetic semiconductors [36][37][38].…”

Controlling the electrical resistivity of porous silicon carbide ceramics and their applications: A review

“…Kultayeva et al 27 reported a difference of four orders of magnitude in the electrical resistivity of N 2 -doped (2.1 × 10 -1 Ω.cm) and undoped (1.2 × 10 3 Ω⋅cm) SiC at the same porosity of 62%. In addition to N 2 , 122-126 O 2 , 126,127 Al, [128][129][130][131] B, 131,132 V, 133,134 Be, 131 Ga, 122 Sc, 135,136 P, 123,124,137 C, 127 etc. are soluble in the SiC lattice.…”