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Effect of Film Thickness Variation on (100)-Surface Texturing of MPS Processed Polycrystalline Si Films

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2012

Monica Chahal ,
P. C. van der Wilt ,
D. Van Gestel ,
A. B. Limanov ,
A. M. Chitu  and
James S. Im
Monica Chahal
Affiliation:
Program in Materials Science and Engineering, Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
P. C. van der Wilt
Affiliation:
Program in Materials Science and Engineering, Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
D. Van Gestel
Affiliation:
IMEC Solar Cell Tech. Group, Leuven, Belgium
A. B. Limanov
Affiliation:
Program in Materials Science and Engineering, Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
A. M. Chitu
Affiliation:
Program in Materials Science and Engineering, Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
James S. Im
Affiliation:
Program in Materials Science and Engineering, Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA WCU Program, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, College of Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and technology (KAIST), Korea
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Abstract

We have investigated the effect of varying the film thickness on the surface orientation texturing in polycrystalline Si films obtained via mixed-phase solidification (MPS) of initially a-Si precursor films on SiO2. It is found that, for a given number of MPS exposure cycles, the degree of (100)-surface texturing is reduced as the film thickness is increased. We discuss how this trend can be accounted for by the previously proposed thermodynamic model of MPS, wherein a decreasing local solid/liquid interface curvature with increasing film thickness is identified as the primary cause for decreasing the influence which anisotropic solid-Si/SiO2 interfacial energies have on the survivability of the grains. This, in turn, leads to other factors becoming more significant in determining the grains that survive the MPS cycle, thereby reducing the degree of (100)-surface texturing in the resulting films.

Keywords

Simicrostructuretexture
Type
Articles
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 1426: Symposium A – Amorphous and Polycrystalline Thin-Film Silicon Science and Technology—2012 , 2012 , pp. 257 - 262
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2012

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References

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