Photocharge Transport and Recombination Measurements in Amorphous Silicon Films and Solar Cells by Photoconductive Frequency Mixing: Final Subcontract Report, 13 May 1994-15 January 1998

This report describes work performed during this subcontract by the University of California. The photoconductivity, lifetime, and drift mobility of intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H), hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC:H), and hydrogenated amorphous silicon germanium (a-SiGe:H) were determined using a photomixing technique in the as prepared and light-soaked states. Inaddition to the decay of the photoconductivity and electron lifetime, continuous decay of the electron drift mobility was found during the light-soaking process (Staebler-Wronski effect). Experimental data were fitted to a stretched exponential law. Different stretched-exponential parameters for photoconductivity, lifetime, and drift mobility were obtained, which indicates the production ofdefects with different generation kinetics upon light soaking. The transport properties of intrinsic a-Si:H samples (which were produced by the hot-wire technique at NREL at different substrate temperatures such that the hydrogen content ranged from >10% to <1%), were systematically studied. It was found that with increasing substrate temperature, the lifetime, the drift mobility, and thephotoconductivity decreased, but the Urbach energy (~0.1 eV below the conduction band) increased. These results indicate that for the a-Si:H films with increasing deposition temperature, the density of positively charged, negatively charged, and neutral defects all show a tendency to increase, in agreement with the results observed by other workers employing other measurement techniques.Researchers also found that the drift mobility of these samples increases and the lifetime decreases with increasing electric field, while the mt product is essentially independent of the electric field in the range of 1,000-10,000 V/cm. The electric field dependence of mobility (Dm) /m0/ (DE) in the as-grown or/and annealed states are always larger than that in the light-soaked state. Thiselectric field dependence of mobility can be explained by the existence of long-range potential fluctuations. Photoemission measurements in air were performed on a-Si:H, a-SiC:H, and transparent conducting oxide layers, and revealed inhomogeneities of composition or surface contamination.