Ultrafast deposition of microcrystalline Si by thermal plasma chemical vapor deposition

This research is an attempt to apply thermal plasma chemical vapor deposition for the ultrafast deposition of Si films for solar cells. The improvement of stability, controllability, and cleanliness of the process enabled the deposition of μc-Si films at the ultrafast rate of over 1000 nm/s. Moreover, a minimum defect density of 7.2×1016 cm−3 was achieved. Monte-Carlo simulation and step coverage analysis suggested that the precursor is an approximately 1 nm cluster with a sticking probability of about 0.6. The success of this research may change the established concepts of Si deposition technology.