New Amorphous Silicon Alloy Systems

The properties of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) have been modified by alloying with Al, Ga and S respectively. The Al and Ga alloys are in effect quaternary alloys as they were fabricated in a carbon-rich discharge. The alloys were prepared by the plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition (PACVD) method. This method has several advantages, the major one being the relatively low defect densities of the resulting materials. The PACVD system used to grow the alloy films was designed and constructed in the laboratory. It was first tested with known (a-Si:H and a-Si:As:H) materials. Thus, it was established that device quality alloy films could be grown with the home-made PACVD setup. The chemical composition of the alloys was characterized by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), and electron probe microanalysis (EPMA). The homogeneous nature of hydrogen distribution in the alloys was established by SIMS depth profile analysis. A quantitative analysis of the bulk elemental content was carried out by EPMA. The analysis indicated that the alloying element was incorporated in the films more efficiently at low input gas concentrations than at the higher concentrations. A topological model was proposed to explain the observed behavior. The optical energy gap of the alloys could be varied in the 0.90 to 1.92 eV range. The Al and Ga alloys were low band gap materials, whereas alloying with S had the effect of widening the energy gap. It was observed that although the Si-Al and Si-Ga alloys contained significant amounts of C and H, the magnitude of the energy gap was determined by the metallic component. The various trends in optical properties could be related to the binding characteristics of the respective alloy systems. A quantitative explanation of the results was provided by White's tight binding model. The dark conductivity-temperature dependence of the alloys was examined. A linear dependence was observed for the Al and Ga systems. Electronic conduction in the S-alloys appeared to proceed by a two step mechanism. The thermal activation energies for the high Al content and S-alloys were close to half the band gap value. The photoresponse of the films was determined from the light to dark conductivity ratio. The best photoresponse (sigma_ {L}/sigma_{D} = 4 times 10^2) was obtained for the Si-S alloys showing that they are promising electrode materials for solar cell application. A single unit photovoltaic electrolyzer was constructed by combining a-Si:H solar cells with an electrolysis cell. Several different configurations ((PIN), (PIN)^2 , and (PIN)^3) of the solar cells were tested. Both electric power and chemical energy (H_2) could be simultaneously drawn from the electrolyzer.