Electrical and optical properties of amorphous silicon carbide thin films prepared by e-beam evaporation at room temperature

Amorphous silicon carbide (SiC) thin films can be applied as window layers for perovskite solar cells, where low processing temperature and ion-bombardment free is favorable. By taking advantages of the e-beam evaporation technique, amorphous SiC thin films were deposited at room temperature in this work. The dependency of e-beam current in material composition was investigated, as well as the conductivity and optical bandgap. It is shown that SiC films consist of Si-O component and its ratio can be tuned from 57.5% to 10.0% by controlling the e-beam current from 38 mA to 78 mA. The CC component tends to form at e-beam current more than 58 mA. By adjusting the Si-O and CC components, amorphous SiC thin films with optical bandgap of 1.7–2.3 eV and conductivity of 10−6–10−4 S/cm were obtained with e-beam current of 38–52 mA, which possesses a good potential for applications in solar cells.