Hot-wire chemical vapor deposition prepared aluminum doped p-type microcrystalline silicon carbide window layers for thin film silicon solar cells

Al-doped p-type microcrystalline silicon carbide (µc-SiC:H) thin films were deposited by hot-wire chemical vapor deposition at substrate temperatures below 400 °C. Monomethylsilane (MMS) highly diluted in hydrogen was used as the SiC source in favor of SiC deposition in a stoichiometric form. Aluminum (Al) introduced from trimethylaluminum (TMAl) was used as the p-type dopant. The material property of Al-doped p-type µc-SiC:H thin films deposited with different deposition pressure and filament temperature was investigated in this work. Such µc-SiC:H material is of mainly cubic (3C) SiC polytype. For certain conditions, like high deposition pressure and high filament temperature, additional hexagonal phase and/or stacking faults can be observed. P-type µc-SiC:H thin films with optical band gap E04 ranging from 2.0 to 2.8 eV and dark conductivity ranging from 10−5 to 0.1 S/cm can be prepared. Such transparent and conductive p-type µc-SiC:H thin films were applied in thin film silicon solar cells as the window layer, resulting in an improved quantum efficiency at wavelengths below 480 nm.