Migration of Open Volume Deficiencies in Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon during Annealing

The nanostructure of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) is studied by means of doppler broadening positron annihilation spectroscopy (DB-PAS) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The evolution of open volume deficiencies is monitored during annealing, demonstrating that small vacancies and other small vacancy clusters that...

Studying the nanostructure of a-Si:h solar cell absorber layers using positrion annihilation and neutron reflectometry

Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon (a-Si:H) is a very promising solar cell material with a good potential to use in many applications, as it is cheap to produce, light-weight and flexible. However, upon prolonged exposure to light, the layers suffer from both metastable and irreversible changes (the Staebler-Wronski effect) that have a bad effect on...