High-rate deposition of nano-crystalline silicon thin films on plastics

Nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si:H) is commonly used in the bottom cell of tandem solar cells. With an indirect bandgap, nc-Si:H requires thicker (∼1 µm) films for efficient light harvesting than amorphous Si (a-Si:H) does. Therefore, thin-film high deposition rates are crucial for further cost reduction of highly efficient a–Si:H based photovoltaic technology. Plastic substrates allow for further cost reduction by enabling roll-to-roll inline deposition. In this work, high nc-Si:H deposition rates on plastic were achieved at low substrate temperature (150 °C) by standard Radio-frequency (13.56 MHz) Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition. Focus was on the influence of deposition pressure, inter-electrode distance (1.2 cm) and high power coupled to the plasma, on the hydrogen-to-silane dilution ratios (HD) necessary to achieve the amorphous-to-nanocrystalline phase transition and on the resulting film deposition rate. For each pressure and rf-power, there is a value of HD for which the films start to exhibit a certain amount of crystalline fraction. For constant rf-power, this value increases with pressure. Within the parameter range studied the deposition rate was highest (0.38 nm/s) for nc-Si:H films deposited at 6 Torr, 700 mW/cm2 using HD of 98.5%. Decreasing the pressure to 3 Torr (1.5 Torr) and rf-power to 350 mW/cm2 using HD – 98.5% deposition rate is 0.12 nm/s (0.076 nm/s). Raman crystalline fraction of these films is 72, 62 and 53% for the 6, 3 and 1.5 Torr films, respectively (© 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)