Boron Induced Crystallization of Silicon on Glass: an Alternate Way to Crystallize Amorphous Silicon Films for Solar Cells

Abstract Demand for efficient window layer in thin film solar cells with high crystallinity is ever increasing that finds important application in multi-junction/tandem silicon solar cells. Doping of diborane (B₂H₆) in hydrogenated silicon films using plasma discharge decomposition of silane (SiH₄) and (B₂H₆) gases were analyzed. The boron flow (FB) to silane ratio was varied from 0–0.30. Variation in film characteristics with B₂H₆ gas-phase ratio were analyzed, and concluded that doping boron induces crystallization in hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si: H) film structure. The Raman and field emission scanning electron spectroscopy (FESEM) confirmed the boron induced crystallinity effect in silicon films at different diborane flow. The results showed that as boron content increases beyond certain ratio, silicon crystallization suppresses and the crystallite sizes were also reduced. From results, it was observed that crystallinity in FB = 0.05 is 79 % and decreases to 77 % when films are slightly higher doped (FB = 0.10) and further decreases when the films were heavily doped. These results validate that boron suppresses silicon crystallization due to local deformations caused by the impurities. Infra-red absorption studies and their analysis also confirm the crystallization in boron doped films with additional band appears at ~ 611 cm^{− 1}. This band is named as boron induced crystallinity mode of vibrational spectra. The estimated hydrogen content (C_H) decreases confirmed crystallinity in the silicon structure with boron doping. Further, the energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDX) indicates the presence of boron and other impurities in deposited silicon films. The effect of boron on crystallinity and crystallite size as well as the mechanism were presented in detailed.