R. Van Overstraeten

G. Caratti

Amorphous silicon PV panel mass production will require to mas ter plasma chemical deposition in terms of large sizes, cost, maintenance and all other problems related to industrialization. Since plasma deposition is a novel technique, the development of all this production related know how involves a considerable technical research effort. The major problems related to the design of a production deposi tion machine are the following - deposition should be uniform on very large area substrate (typical dimension 1 meter) ; - the deposited amorphous silicon should have good electronic properties (density of state of the order or less than 16 3 10 cm /eV) and very low impurities concentrations (for exam ple oxygen atomic concentration should idealy be less than 0. 01 %) ; - the film stress should be limited, the density of ponctual defects (particulates) should remain reasonable (less than 2 per 100 cm ) ; - dopant level control should be stable and efficient ; - silane consumption should remain reasonably efficient - financial cost being important the machine productivity should be high hence deposition rate optimized ; - downtime due to maintenance should be reduced to a minimum. We present here some results on the R&D effort addressed to the above mentioned problems. An original single chamber was designed. This machine will be made available on the market for R&D purposes by a process machine company. Finally the maintenance problem is considered. Plasma cleaning based on a fluorine containing etchant gases is studied and evaluated. 2.

Proceedings of the Second Contractors’ Meeting held in Hamburg, 16–18 September 1987

Photovoltaic Power Generation

Suresh Jain

Magnus Willander

In recent years, extensive work has been done on strain, dislocations and mechanical properties of strained layers. Although it is not possible to describe all this work in a monograph of this size, Compound Semiconductors Strained Layers and Devices provides an overview with sufficient detail to cover all the essential aspects of recent developments in the field. The book concentrates on compound semiconductors with emphasis on wideband gap II-VI and III-Nitride semiconductors. GeSi strained layers are discussed for comparison to clarify the underlying physics. The effects of strain on band structure, transport, and optical properties of both the zinc blende and the wurtzite compound semiconductors are discussed, as are Piezoelectric Effects and Quantum Confined Stark Effects. Magnetic polarons in diluted II-VI magnetic polarons are also covered. Among the applications, blue and green LEDs and LDs and mid-IR LDs are included. A whole chapter is devoted to these devices. Another chapter examines transistors based on conventional III-V, II-VI and III-nitride semiconductors. The subject matter is treated at a level appropriate for students and senior researchers interested in material science, and in designing and modeling semiconductor devices. It will also be useful to engineers and material scientists concerned with the effects of strain on the mechanical properties of crystalline layers of any material.

R. Van Overstraeten

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