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Biaxial Texturing of Inorganic Photovoltaic Thin Films Using Low Energy Ion Beam Irradiation During Growth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2011

James Groves ,
Garrett J Hayes ,
Joel B Li ,
Raymond F DePaula ,
Robert Hammond ,
Alberto Salleo  and
Bruce M Clemens
James Groves
Affiliation:
jgroves@stanford.edu, Stanford University, Materials Science, Stanford, California, United States
Garrett J Hayes
Affiliation:
ghayes@stanford.edu, Stanford University, Materials Science, Stanford, California, United States
Joel B Li
Affiliation:
joelli@stanford.edu, Stanford University, Electrical Engineering, Stanford, California, United States
Raymond F DePaula
Affiliation:
rdepaula@lanl.gov, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Superconductivity Technology Center, Los Alamos, New Mexico, United States
Robert Hammond
Affiliation:
rhammond@stanford.edu, Stanford University, GLAM, 476 Lomita Mall, Stanford, California, 94305, United States, 650 723-0169
Alberto Salleo
Affiliation:
asalleo@stanford.edu, Stanford University, Materials Science, Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Stanford, California, 94305, United States
Bruce M Clemens
Affiliation:
bmc@stanford.edu, Stanford University, Materials Science and Engineering, 94305, California, United States
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Abstract

We describe our efforts to control the grain boundary alignment in polycrystalline thin films of silicon by using a biaxially textured template layer of CaF2 for photovoltaic device applications. We have chosen CaF2 as a candidate material due to its close lattice match with silicon and its suitability as an ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD) material. We show that the CaF2 aligns biaxially at a thickness of ~10 nm and, with the addition of an epitaxial CaF2 layer, has an in-plane texture of ~15°. Deposition of a subsequent layer of Si aligns on the template layer with an in-plane texture of 10.8°. The additional improvement of in-plane texture is similar to the behavior observed in more fully characterized IBAD materials systems. A germanium buffer layer is used to assist in the epitaxial deposition of Si on CaF2 template layers and single crystal substrates. These experiments confirm that an IBAD template can be used to biaxially orient polycrystalline Si.

Keywords

ion-beam assisted depositionphotovoltaictexture
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 1245: Symposium A – Amorphous and Polycrystalline Thin-Film Silicon Science and Technology-2010 , 2010 , 1245-A20-06
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2010

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