Electrical properties of hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon carbon alloys: effect of deposition parameters and light soaking

New materials with electrical properties similar to those of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) or hydrogenated amorphous silicon germanium alloys, but that are stable under light soaking, could be a breakthrough for multi-junction thin-film silicon solar cell technology. With this aim, hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon-carbon alloy (μc-Si1-_xC_x:H) thin films seem like promising candidates as the variation of the carbon in the alloy composition can be used to tune the effective bandgap, keeping a high crystalline fraction. In this study, a highly hydrogen-diluted silane and methane gas mixture was used to deposit μc-Si1-_xC_x:H thin films by radio frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (RF-PECVD). The effect of the independent variation of three deposition parameters (variation of methane flow rate, addition of a small amount of silicon tetrafluoride and variation of the RF-power density) on the electronic transport and defect properties was investigated. Selected samples were studied in their 'as deposited' state, after light soaking until saturation, and after a high temperature annealing. Particular care was paid to comparing the behaviour of this new material system to that of a reference a-Si:H sample, deposited by standard RF-PECVD.