Crystallization of catalytic CVD hydrogenated n-a-Si films on textured glass substrates by flash lamp annealing

Abstract Flash lamp annealing (FLA) is a short-duration annealing technique that can crystallize amorphous silicon (a-Si) films for thin-film polycrystalline Si (poly-Si) solar cells. We investigated the crystallization of n-type hydrogenated a-Si (n-a-Si:H) films formed by catalytic chemical vapor deposition on Si nitride- (SiN x - ) coated textured glass substrates. The n-a-Si:H films with a thickness of ∼2.7 μm were crystallized by FLA with no film peeling even without chromium adhesion layers. We also confirmed that the crystallization takes place through explosive crystallization (EC). The addition of phosphorous to the precursor a-Si:H slightly modifies the crystallization, resulting in different grain sizes and EC velocities compared to the case of EC of intrinsic a-Si:H.