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Effect of grain alignment on lateral carrier transport in aligned-crystalline silicon films on polycrystalline substrates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Woong Choi ,
Alp T. Findikoglu ,
Manuel J. Romero  and
Mowafak Al-Jassim
Woong Choi
Affiliation:
Materials Physics and Applications Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545
Alp T. Findikoglu*
Affiliation:
Materials Physics and Applications Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545
Manuel J. Romero
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado 80401
Mowafak Al-Jassim
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado 80401
*
b) Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: findik@lanl.gov
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Abstract

We report the studies on the effect of grain alignment on lateral carrier transport in nominally 〈001〉-oriented aligned-crystalline silicon (ACSi) films on polycrystalline substrates. With improving grain alignment, energy barrier height at the grain boundaries was reduced from 150 to less than 1 meV, and both conductivity and Hall mobility became less sensitive to hydrogen passivation. This suggests that the dangling bonds in ACSi films are a major source of trapping sites, and that they become less dominant with improving grain alignment. These results demonstrate that improving grain alignment enhances the lateral carrier transport in small-grained (≤1 μm) polycrystalline silicon films, by reducing dangling bond density at the grain boundaries.

Keywords

Grain boundariesIon-beam assisted depositionSi
Type
Rapid Communications
Information
Journal of Materials Research , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , April 2007 , pp. 821 - 825
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2007

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References

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