Structural and electrophysical properties of femtosecond laser exposed hydrogenated amorphous silicon films

This paper studies the effect of femtosecond laser treatment in air of hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin films (a-Si:H) on their structural, electrical and photoelectric properties. The possibility of laser-induced crystallization of a-Si:H films with controlled crystalline volume fraction was shown. A sufficient increase of dark conductivity was observed for laser treated a-Si:H films which crystallinity exceeds 7%. Such increase was attributed to change in conductivity mechanism. However, spectral dependences of absorption coefficient did not show any qualitative changes with the laser fluence increase. It was found that spallation and oxidation of the film took place when laser fluence became reasonably high.

[1]  Jia-Min Shieh,et al.  Near-infrared femtosecond laser-induced crystallization of amorphous silicon , 2004 .

[2]  Beeman,et al.  Dynamics of tetrahedral networks: Amorphous Si and Ge. , 1988, Physical review. B, Condensed matter.

[3]  Markus Schubert,et al.  Low temperature silicon deposition for large area sensors and solar cells , 1999 .

[4]  B. K. Nayak,et al.  Femtosecond-laser-induced-crystallization and simultaneous formation of light trapping microstructures in thin a-Si:H films , 2007 .

[5]  A. V. Medvedev,et al.  Raman scattering spectra and electrical conductivity of thin silicon films with a mixed amorphous-nanocrystalline phase composition: Determination of the nanocrystalline volume fraction , 1997 .

[6]  K. Pey,et al.  Femtosecond laser induced surface nanostructuring and simultaneous crystallization of amorphous thin silicon film. , 2010, Optics express.

[7]  Kenji Yamamoto,et al.  A high efficiency thin film silicon solar cell and module , 2004 .

[8]  Finite element simulation of the film spallation process induced by the pulsed laser peening , 2003 .

[9]  J. Kleider,et al.  Photoconductivity of two-phase hydrogenated silicon films , 2010 .

[10]  J. Stuchlík,et al.  Density of the gap states in undoped and doped glow discharge a-Si:H , 1983 .

[11]  D. L. Staebler,et al.  Optically induced conductivity changes in discharge‐produced hydrogenated amorphous silicon , 1980 .

[12]  J. Chu,et al.  Raman scattering of nanocrystalline silicon embedded in SiO2 , 2000 .

[13]  T. Suezaki,et al.  High efficiency thin film silicon solar cell and module , 2002, Conference Record of the Twenty-Ninth IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 2002..

[14]  Qi Wang,et al.  Optical and electronic properties of microcrystalline silicon as a function of microcrystallinity , 2000 .

[15]  S. K. Sundaram,et al.  Inducing and probing non-thermal transitions in semiconductors using femtosecond laser pulses , 2002, Nature materials.

[16]  Y. Yao,et al.  FEMTOSECOND LASER-INDUCED SURFACE TEXTURING AND CRYSTALLIZATION OF A-SI:H THIN FILM , 2010 .

[17]  L. Ley,et al.  The one phonon Raman spectrum in microcrystalline silicon , 1981 .

[18]  Junichi Sato,et al.  Formation of (100)-Textured Si Film Using an Excimer Laser on a Glass Substrate , 2003 .

[19]  Y. Poissant,et al.  Plasma production of nanocrystalline silicon particles and polymorphous silicon thin films for large-area electronic devices , 2002 .

[20]  Alexander L. Efros,et al.  Electronic Properties of Doped Semi-conductors , 1984 .