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Spectral and Morphological Studies of Nanocrystalline Silicon Thin Films Synthesized by PECVD for Solar Cells

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An Erratum to this article was published on 01 April 2010

Abstract

In this work, a series of nanocrystalline silicon films were studied with different microstructural tools to elucidate the film microstructure at different stages of growth. Thin Si films, with a series of multilayers, were deposited by radio frequency glow discharge using Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapour Deposition (PECVD) in silane gas (SiH4) highly diluted by hydrogen. Different nanostructured films were prepared by systematically varying gas flow ratios (R = 1/1, 1/5, 1/7.5, 1/10, 1/15, 1/20) for films having different thicknesses. By changing the structure of the material, going from pure amorphous to nanocrystalline silicon, it is possible to obtain a variation in optical gap using the same material. In these structures, layers with different individual optical gaps are stacked together in order to cover as much of the solar spectrum as possible. The nanostructures of the silicon thin films were studied using FTIR, RS, PL, XRD, AFM, SEM, TEM and HRTEM. The results were correlated for conglomerate surface, grain surface. Some theoretical calculations were used for designing the overall stack geometry and for interpretation of characterization. These agree well with experimental observation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Periyar University, Salem, 636 011, Tamilnadu, India

    P. M. Anbarasan, P. Senthilkumar, S. Manimegalai, M. Geetha, K. Vasudevan & V. Ravi

  2. Nanorobotics Group, Department of Engineering Materials, University of Sheffield, 36, Hurlfield, Avenue, Sheffield, S12 2TN, UK

    D. Deivasagayam

  3. Crystal Growth Centre, Anna University, Chennai, 600 025, India

    S. Moorthy Babu

  4. PROTOS Research Institute, Via Flavia 23/1, C/O Sviluppo Italia, Trieste, 34148, Italy

    V. Aroulmoji

Authors
  1. P. M. Anbarasan
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  2. P. Senthilkumar
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  3. S. Manimegalai
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  4. M. Geetha
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  5. K. Vasudevan
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  6. V. Ravi
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  7. D. Deivasagayam
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  8. S. Moorthy Babu
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  9. V. Aroulmoji
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Correspondence to P. M. Anbarasan.

Additional information

An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12633-010-9047-6

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Anbarasan, P.M., Senthilkumar, P., Manimegalai, S. et al. Spectral and Morphological Studies of Nanocrystalline Silicon Thin Films Synthesized by PECVD for Solar Cells. Silicon 2, 7–17 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-009-9028-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-009-9028-9

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