Study of the effect of the deposition parameters on the structural, electric and optical characteristics of polymorphous silicon films prepared by low frequency PECVD

Amorphous, Polymorphous, and Microcrystalline Silicon Thin Films Deposited by Plasma at Low Temperatures

“…High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) was used to study the film's bulk transversal structure. Figure 9 shows a transversal view of a 100 nm thick pm-Si:H film deposited over (1 0 0) c-Si obtained in our previous work [22]; in the figure several nanocrystals of sizes of around (3-5 nm) are marked; it also is possible to observe the presence of nanoislands at the c-Si/pm-Si:H interface. Figure 9.…”

“…The noncrystalline semiconductors materials also known as "amorphous semiconductors" are usually obtained by the dissociation of gas species using the PECVD technique [21,22]. In these materials the chemical bonding of atoms is a random covalent network; the disorder variation in the angles between bonds eliminates the regular lattice structure of its crystalline counterpart, as is shown in Figure 3.…”

Deposition and characterization of amorphous silicon with embedded nanocrystals and microcrystalline silicon for thin film solar cells

“…The above features, allows use different substrates like metal foils, plastics and glasses [1][2][3][4]. However a-Si:H has some disadvantages as the large density of states in the band gap, poor transport properties, and poor stability against radiation.…”

“…Recently, it has been found that it is possible to form nanocrystals in the amorphous silicon matrix, improving its electrical properties, as electron mobility and stability against radiation, such material is usually referred as polymorphous silicon (pm-Si:H) or nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si:H), depending on the density of nanocrystals [1][2][3][5][6][7].…”

“…The presence of such nanocrystals results on a lower density of states in the band gap and much better transport properties than a-Si:H [3,5], which makes pm-Si:H an excellent candidate for more stable thin film solar cells.…”