• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
• /
• 2000.07c
• /
• pp.1763-1765
• /
• 2000

This paper presents deposition and characterizations of microcrystalline silicon ($\mu$ c-Si:H) films prepared by hot wire chemical vapor deposition at substrate temperature at 300$^{\circ}C$. The flow rates of $SiH_4$ gas are critical parameter for the formation of Si films with microcrystalline phase. We could obtain $\mu$ c-Si:H with columnar grain structure and volume fraction of 75% without H2 dilution. The electronic properties, hydrogen bonding configurations, and $H_2$ concentration inside the films are also strongly affected by $SiH_4$ flow rate, which is provided in this paper.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
• /
• 2001.05a
• /
• pp.65-65
• /
• 2001

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.21 no.12
• /
• pp.666-672
• /
• 2011

The a-Si:H/c-Si hetero-junction (HJ) solar cells have a variety of advantages in efficiency and fabrication processes. It has already demonstrated about 23% in R&D scale and more than 20% in commercial production. In order to further reduce the fabrication cost of HJ solar cells, fabrication processes should be simplified more than conventional methods which accompany separate processes of front and rear sides of the cells. In this study, we propose a simultaneous deposition of intrinsic thin a-Si:H layers on both sides of a wafer by dual hot wire CVD (HWVCD). In this system, wafers are located between tantalum wires, and a-Si:H layers are simultaneously deposited on both sides of the wafer. By using this scheme, we can reduce the process steps and time and improve the efficiency of HJ solar cells by removing surface contamination of the wafers. We achieved about 16% efficiency in HJ solar cells incorporating intrinsic a-Si:H buffers by dual HWCVD and p/n layers by PECVD.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
• /
• 1999.07d
• /
• pp.1928-1930
• /
• 1999

This paper describes on the growth of a ${\mu}c$-Si:H film on low cost substrate like glass by Hot Wire CVD method. The ${\mu}c$-Si:H film, prepared in 50mTorr pressure, $1800^{\circ}C$ wire temperature, and $H_2/SiH_4$ 10 showed three clear peaks. (111), (220), and (311) in X-ray spectroscopy. The crystallite size and crystalline volume fraction, calculated from Raman spectroscopy, was about 6nm and 70%, respectively. The FTIR transmission spectra of the film showed a different absorption peak with a-Si:H film around $2000-2100cm^{-1}$.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2005.11a
• /
• pp.561-566
• /
• 2005

Polycrystalline silicon films were deposited using hot wire CVD (HWCVD). The deposition of silicon thin films was approached by the theory of charged clusters (TCC). The TCC states that thin films grow by self-assembly of charged clusters or nanoparticles that have nucleated in the gas phase during the normal thin film process. Negatively charged clusters of a few nanometer in size were captured on a transmission electron microscopy (TEM) grid and observed by TEM. The negatively charged clusters are believed to have been generated by ion-induced nucleation on negative ions, which are produced by negative surface ionization on a tungsten hot wire. The electric current on the substrate carried by the negatively charged clusters during deposition was measured to be approximately $-2{\mu}A/cm^2$. Silicon thin films were deposited at different $SiH_4$ and $H_2$ gas mixtures and filament temperatures. The crystalline volume fraction, grain size and the growth rate of the films were measured by Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. The deposit ion behavior of the si1icon thin films was related to properties of the charged clusters, which were in turn controlled by the process conditions. In order to verify the effect of the charged clusters on the growth behavior, three different electric biases of -200 V, 0 V and +25 V were applied to the substrate during the process, The deposition rate at an applied bias of +25 V was greater than that at 0 V and -200 V, which means that the si1icon film deposition was the result of the deposit ion of charged clusters generated in the gas phase. The working pressures had a large effect on the growth rate dependency on the bias appled to the substrate, which indicates that pressure affects the charging ratio of neutral to negatively charged clusters. These results suggest that polycrystalline silicon thin films with high crystalline volume fraction and large grain size can be produced by control1ing the behavior of the charged clusters generated in the gas phase of a normal HWCVD reactor.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
• /
• 2001.07a
• /
• pp.632-635
• /
• 2001

Microcrystalline Si films have been deposited by using five W-wire filaments of 0.5 mm diameter for hot-wire chemical vapor deposition (HWCVD). We compared the HWCVD grown films with the film exposed to transformer couple plasma system for the modification of seed layer. W-wire filament temperature was maintained below 1600$^{\circ}C$ to avoid metal contamination by thermal evaporation at the filament. Deposition conditions were varied with H$_2$dilution ratio, with and without plasma treatment. From the Raman spectra analysis, we observed that the film crystallization was strongly influenced by the H$_2$dilution ratio and weakly depended on the distance between the wire and a substrate. We were able to achieve the crystalline volume fraction of about 70% with an SiH$_4$/H$_2$ratio of 1.3%, a wire temperature of 1514$^{\circ}C$, a substrate separation distance of 4cm, and a chamber pressure of 38 mTorr. We investigated the influence of ${\mu}$c-Si film properties by using a plasma treatment. This article also deals with the influence of the H$_2$dilution ratio in crystallization modification.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
• /
• 2003.07c
• /
• pp.1598-1600
• /
• 2003

Microcrystalline silicon(c-Si:H) thin-film solar cells are prepared with intrinsic Si-layer by hot wire CVD. The operating parameters of solar cells are strongly affected by the filament temperature ($T_f$) during intrinsic layer. Jsc and efficiency abruptly decreases with elevated $T_f$ to $1400^{\circ}C$. This deterioration of solar cell parameters are resulted from increase of crystalline volume fraction and corresponding defect density at high $T_f$ The heater temperature ($T_h$) are also critical parameter that controls device operations. Solar cells prepared at low $T_h$ (<$200^{\circ}C$) shows a similar operating properties with devices prepared at high $T_f$, i.e. low Jsc, Voc and efficiency. The origins for this result, however, are different with that of inferior device performances at high $T_f$. In addition the phase transition of the silicon films occurs at different silane concentration (SC) by varying filament temperature, by which highest efficiency with SC vanes with $T_f$.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
• /
• 2002.07c
• /
• pp.1555-1558
• /
• 2002

This paper presents deposition and characterizations of microcrystalline silicon(${\mu}c$-Si:H) films prepared by hot wire chemical vapor deposition at substrate temperature below $300^{\circ}C$. The $SiH_4$ Concentration$[F(SiH_4)/F(SiH_4)+F(H_2)]$ is critical parameter for the formation of Si films with microcrystalline phase. At 6% of silane concentration, deposited intrinsic ${\mu}c$-Si:H films shows sufficiently low dark conductivity and high photo sensitivity for solar cell applications. P-type ${\mu}c$-S:H films deposited by Hot-Wire CVD also shows good electrical properties by varying the rate of $B_2H_6$ to $SiH_4$ gas. The solar cells with structure of Al/nip ${\mu}c$-Si:H/TCO/glass was fabricated with sing1e chamber Hot-Wire CVD. About 3% solar efficiency was obtained and applicability of HWCVD for thin film solar cells was proven in this research.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
• /
• v.21 no.1
• /
• pp.1-10
• /
• 2001

Polycrystalline silicon(poly-Si) films are deposited on low temperature glass substrate by Hot-CVD(HWCVD). The structural properties of the poly-Si films are strongly dependent on the temperature$(T_w)$. The films deposited at high $T_w$ of $2000^{\circ}C$ have superior crystalline proper average lateral grain sizes are larger than $1{\mu}m$ and there are no vertical grain boundaries. The sur of the high $T_w$ samples are naturally textured like pyramid shape. These large grain size and text surface are believed to give high current density when applied to solar cells. However, the poly films are structurally porous and contains high defect density, by which high concentration of C and O resulted within the films by air-penetration after removed from chamber.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2009.11a
• /
• pp.383-383
• /
• 2009

Silicon is commercially prepared by the reaction of high-purity silica with wood, charcoal, and coal, in an electric arc furnace using carbon electrodes, so called the metallurgical refining process, which produces ~98% pure Si (MG-Si). This can be further purified to solar grade silicon (SoG-Si) by various techniques. The most problematic impurity elements are B and P because of their high segregation coefficients. In this study, we explored the possibility of the using Cat-CVD for Si purification. The existing hot-wire CVD was modified to accommodate the catalyzer and the heating source. Mo boat (1.5 cm ${\times}$ 1 cm ${\times}$ 0.2 cm) was used as a heating source. Commercially available Si was purchased from Nilaco corporation (~99% pure). This powder was kept in the Mo-boat and heated to the purification temperature. In addition to the purification by cat-CVD technique, other methods such as thermal CVD, plasma enhanced CVD, vacuum annealing was also tried. It is found that the impurities are reduced to a great extent when treated with cat-CVD method.