Affiliation:
1. School of Energy Studies, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune 411 007,India
2. Department of Physics, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune 411 007,India
Abstract
Objective:
Phosphorus doped hydrogenated nano-crystalline silicon (nc-Si:H) thin
films were synthesized by catalytic chemical vapor deposition (Cat-CVD) method.
Methods:
The effect of deposition pressure on opto-electronic and structural properties was
studied using various analysis techniques such as low angle XRD analysis, FTIR spectroscopy,
Raman spectroscopy, UV-Visible spectroscopy, dark conductivity, etc.
Results:
From low angle XRD and Raman spectroscopy analysis, it is observed that an increase
in deposition pressure causes Si:H films to transform and transit from amorphous to
the crystalline phase. At optimized deposition pressure (300 mTorr), phosphorous doped nc-
Si:H films having a crystallite size of ∼29 nm and crystalline volume fraction of ∼58% along
with high deposition rate (∼29.7 Å/s) have been obtained. The band gap was found to be
∼1.98 eV and hydrogen content was as low as (∼1.72 at. %) for these films.
Conclusion:
The deposited films can be useful as an n-type layer for Si:H based p-i-n,
tandem and c-Si hetero-junction solar cells.
Publisher
Bentham Science Publishers Ltd.
Subject
General Chemical Engineering