Bandgap and Carrier Transport Engineering of Quantum Confined Mixed Phase Nanocrystalline/Amorphous Silicon

Pauls Stradins, Tianyuan Guan, Grant Klafehn, Chito Kendrick, San Theingi, Idemudia Airuoyo, Mark Lusk, Craig Taylor, Reuben Collins

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

1 Scopus Citations

Abstract

Mixed phase nanocrystalline/amorphous-silicon (nc/a-Si:H) thin films with band-gap higher than bulk silicon are prepared by depositing silicon nanoparticles (SiNPs), prepared in a separate deposition zone, and hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H), simultaneously. Since the two deposition phases are well decoupled, optimized parameters for each component can apply to the growth process. Photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL) shows that the embedded SiNPs are small enough to exhibit quantum confinement effects. The low temperature PL measurements on the mixed phase reveal a dominant emission feature, which is associated with SiNPs surrounded by a-Si:H. In addition, we compare time dependent low temperature PL measurements for both a-Si:H and mixed phase material under intensive laser exposure for various times up to two hours. The PL intensity of a-Si:H with embedded SiNPs degrades much less than that of pure a-Si:H. We propose this improvement of photostability occurs because carriers generated in the a-Si:H matrix quickly transfer into SiNPs and recombine there instead of recombining in a-Si:H and creating defect states (Staebler-Wronski Effect).

Original languageAmerican English
Pages2780-2785
Number of pages6
DOIs
StatePublished - 18 Nov 2016
Event43rd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, PVSC 2016 - Portland, United States
Duration: 5 Jun 201610 Jun 2016

Conference

Conference43rd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, PVSC 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityPortland
Period5/06/1610/06/16

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 IEEE.

NREL Publication Number

  • NREL/CP-5J00-67939

Keywords

  • amorphous
  • carrier transfer
  • defect
  • light-induced degradation
  • nanoparticles
  • photoluminescence
  • silicon

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