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.
Keywords: Cat-CVD, Phosphorus doped nc-SI:H, Electrical properties, XRD, Raman Spectroscopy.
Graphical Abstract
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