Recent advances in amorphous and microcrystalline silicon basis devices for optoelectronic applications

The current state of the art in recent advances hydrogenated amorphous and microcrystalline silicon (a-Si and mu c-Si) technologies and their applicat ions to optoelectronic devices are reviewed. With the recent progress in ma terial preparation and characterization technologies, we now have an age th at considerably high quality thin films having valency electron controllabi lity can be produced. In this paper, recent progress in thin film solar cel l fabrication with a-Si and mu c-Si technologies for active materials for o ptoelectronic devices are reviewed first, and their significance are pointe d out, then some typical newly developed devices such as integrated amorpho us solar cells, flexible solar cells etc., are demonstrated. Secondly, new kinds of thin film light-emitting devices, including solid-state flat panel displays are introduced. In the final part of this paper, the remarkable i ndustrial progress in the field of optoelectronics and the prospects of mar ket expansion toward the 21st century are briefly discussed. (C) 1999 Elsev ier Science B.V. All rights reserved.