Photovoltaic Characteristics of Nitrogen Doped Amorphous Carbon Film Grown by Microwave Surface Wave Plasma CVD

Author

Aryal, Hare Ram ; Adhikari, Sudip ; Omer, Ashraf M M ; Adhikary, Sunil ; Uchida, Hideo ; Umeno, Masayoshi

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Electron. Eng., Chubu Univ.

Volume

1

fYear

2006

fDate

38838

Firstpage

306

Lastpage

308

Abstract

Photovoltaic properties of nitrogen doped amorphous carbon (a-C:N) thin films deposited on p-type silicon (p-Si) and quartz substrates by microwave (MW) surface-wave plasma (SWP) chemical vapor deposition (CVD) at low temperature (<100 degC) are analyzed in this section. Argon (Ar: 200 sccm), methane (CH₄:10 sccm) and nitrogen (N: 5 sccm) were used as carrier, source and doping gases respectively. Analytical methods such as X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), UV-visible spectroscopy and solar simulator were employed to investigate the chemical, optical and photovoltaic properties of the a-C:N film respectively. The optical gap of the film was found to be 2.3 eV. The photovoltaic measurements under light illumination (AM 1.5, 100 mW/cm ²) shows that short circuit current density, open circuit voltage, fill factor and photo-conversion efficiency of the film are 0.003 mA/cm, 0.108 V, 0.25 and 1.8times10^-4 respectively which suggests the formation of heterojunction between the a-C:N and p-Si

Keywords

X-ray photoelectron spectra; amorphous semiconductors; carbon; current density; elemental semiconductors; nitrogen; optical constants; photovoltaic effects; plasma CVD coatings; semiconductor doping; semiconductor heterojunctions; semiconductor thin films; short-circuit currents; ultraviolet spectra; visible spectra; C:N-Si; SWP-CVD; Si; SiO₂; UV spectroscopy; X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy; XPS; chemical properties; doping; heterojunction; microwave surface wave plasma CVD; microwave surface-wave plasma chemical vapor deposition; nitrogen doped amorphous carbon film; open circuit voltage; optical gap; optical properties; p-type silicon substrate; photoconversion efficiency; photovoltaic characteristics; quartz substrate; short circuit current density; solar simulator; visible spectroscopy; Amorphous materials; Nitrogen; Optical films; Optical surface waves; Photovoltaic systems; Plasma properties; Plasma temperature; Plasma waves; Solar power generation; Surface waves;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, Conference Record of the 2006 IEEE 4th World Conference on

Conference_Location

Waikoloa, HI

Print_ISBN

1-4244-0017-1

Electronic_ISBN

1-4244-0017-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/WCPEC.2006.279452

Filename

4059625