Objective
THIS PROGRAM FOCUSES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF A HIGH DEPOSITION RATE TECHNIQUE FOR DEVICE QUALITY HYDROGENATED AMORPHOUS SILICON. THE IONIZED CLUSTER BEAM (ICB) METHOD HAS BEEN CHOSEN AND WILL BE COMBINED WITH A HIGH OUTPUT HYDROGEN SOURCE IN ORDER TO PRODUCE UNIFORM, HIGH DENSITY A-SI:H FILMS WITH PROPERTIES SIMILAR TO THOSE OF PLASMA CVD DEPOSITED MATERIALS.
An assessment has been conducted of the applicability of the ionized cluster beam (ICB) technique as an alternative method of growth of hydrogenated amorphous silicon films. Despite obstinate efforts, device quality films could not be produced using this technique.
During this work, a time of flight mass spectrometry technique has been developed which can be used continuously, during film growth, to monitor the size distribution of clusters in the ion beam.
A simple hydrogen dissociator has also been developed for vacuum deposition techniques such as thermal evaporation or ion assisted deposition. Using this source, the mechanism of hydrogen incorporation in hydrogenated amorphous silicon films during growth has been studied using vacuum evaporation. This is the key issue in any effort to develop novel deposition methods for this material which could promote its application to the manufacturing of inexpensive and efficient solar generators.
THE APPLICABILITY OF IONIZED CLUSTER BEAM (ICB) TECHNIQUE FOR FAST DEPOSITION OF HYDROGENATED AMORPHOUS SILICON FILMS HAS BEEN INVESTIGATED.
THE MAIN OBSTACLE ENCOUNTERED IS THE REACTIVITY OF SI WITH VARIOUS CRUCIBLE MATERIALS THAT HAVE BEEN INVESTIGATED SO FAR. THE CRUCIBLE TEMPERATURE MUST BE ABOVE 2000 C, IN ORDER TO OBTAIN THE VAPOR PRESSURE OF A FEW TORR, THAT IS NECESSARY FOR CLUSTER FORMATION THROUGH NOZZLE EXPANSION. A SECOND PROBLEM ARISES BY THE PROGRESSIVE CLOGGING OF THE EXPANSION ORIFICE, WHOSE EXACT GEOMETRIC DIMENSION ARE OF PRIME IMPORTANCE IN DETERMINING CLUSTER AVERAGE SIZE AND DISTRIBUTION. THE LATTER PROBLEM COULD BE CONTROLLED THROUGH A CAREFUL ADJUSTMENT OF THE TEMPERATURE OF THE NOZZLE AREA, DURING DEPOSITION AND ON COOLING DOWN.
TWO DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO THE SOLUTION OF THESE PROBLEMS HAVE BEEN FOLLOWED. ONE IS THE SYSTEMATIC INVESTIGATION OF SI REACTION WITH VARIOUS CANDIDATE CRUCIBLE MATERIALS. TESTS ARE IN PROGRESS TO EVALUATE THE BEHAVIOUR OF GRAPHITE WITH SPECIAL SURFACE TREATMENT. CARBON HAS, SO FAR, GIVEN THE BEST RESULTS. THE SECOND APPROACH AIMS AT THE DEVELOPMENT OF A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT, NOZZLE FREE, CLUSTER FORMATION PROCESS BASED ON PULSED EVAPORATION OF SI, USING A MODIFIED ELECTRON GUN. IN ORDER TO ASSIST THE DESIGN OF THE PULSED E-GUN SYSTEM WE HAVE DONE A FIRST-APPROXIMATION, CALCULATION OF CLUSTER FORMATION IN A CLOUD OF SI VAPOR EXPANDING IN THE VACUUM OF THE DEPOSITION CHAMBER. FINALLY A LOW RESOLUTION MASS SPECTROMETER HAS BEEN DEVELOPED TO ALLOW THE MEASUREMENT OF CLUSTER AVERAGE SIZE AND DISTRIBUTION.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology materials engineering amorphous solids amorphous semiconductors
- engineering and technology materials engineering coating and films
- natural sciences chemical sciences inorganic chemistry metalloids
- natural sciences chemical sciences analytical chemistry mass spectrometry
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Coordinator
71110 Heraklion-Crete
Greece
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