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Doped microcrystalline silicon oxide alloys for silicon‐based photovoltaics: Optoelectronic properties, chemical composition, and structure studied by advanced characterization techniques
Author(s) -
Smirnov V.,
Lambertz A.,
Moll S.,
Bär M.,
Starr D. E.,
Wilks R. G.,
Gorgoi M.,
Heidt A.,
Luysberg M.,
Holländer B.,
Finger F.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
physica status solidi (a)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.532
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1862-6319
pISSN - 1862-6300
DOI - 10.1002/pssa.201533022
Subject(s) - materials science , silicon , plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition , chemical vapor deposition , microcrystalline , doping , photovoltaics , silicon oxide , oxide , chemical composition , chemical engineering , characterization (materials science) , analytical chemistry (journal) , optoelectronics , nanotechnology , crystallography , photovoltaic system , metallurgy , chemistry , silicon nitride , ecology , organic chemistry , chromatography , engineering , biology
Doped microcrystalline silicon oxide (μc‐SiO x :H) alloys attract significant attention as a functional material in photovoltaic devices. By using various advanced characterization methods, we have studied the relationship between optoelectronic properties, chemical composition, and structure of p‐type µc‐SiO x :H deposited by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). For a wide range of compositions with varying oxygen content, we show that the dominant components are Si and a‐SiO 2 , while the fraction of suboxides is minor. The μc‐SiO x :H material with sufficient oxygen content ( x = 0.35) exhibits an enlarged optical gap E 04 > 2.2 eV and sufficiently high dark conductivity >10 −6 S cm −1 ; the crystalline silicon fraction has a filament‐like shape (with a typical width of around 10 nm) forming a branch‐like structure elongated in the growth direction over several hundreds of nanometers.