TRANSPORT AND PHOTOTRANSPORT PROPERTIES OF PLASMA-DEPOSITED HYDROGENATED AMORPHOUS-SILICON NITROGEN ALLOYS, A-SI,N-H

There are two potential applications for a-Si,N:H alloys in photovolta ic (PV) tadem devices (i) as a wide band gap photoactive i-region mate rial, and (ii) as a heavily doped p-type window material. This paper a ddresses the first of these, discussing transport and phototransport p roperties of thin films deposited by remote plasma-enhanced chemical-v apor deposition. Chemical and structural properties have been characte rized by infrared spectroscopy, high resolution transmission electron microscopy, and secondary ion mass spectrometry. Other measurements in clude the photo- and dark-conductivities, the optical absorption edge, and the minority carrier transport by the steady state photocarrier g rating technique. Comparisons of the properties of a-Si,N:H alloys dep osited from two different N-atom source gases, N2 and NH3 are presente d. Significant increases in the slope of the optical absorption edge, and the magnitude of the Staebler-Wronski light-induced-degradation ar e identified for the films deposited from the NH3 source gas relative to those deposited from the N2 source gas.