| AVS 58th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition | |
| Electronic Materials and Processing Division | Thursday Sessions |
| Session EM-ThP |
| Session: | Electronic Materials and Processing Poster Session |
| Presenter: | C.M. Gonzalez, University of Tennessee, Knoxville |
| Authors: | C.M. Gonzalez, University of Tennessee, Knoxville R. Sachan, University of Tennessee, Knoxville G. Duscher, University of Tennessee, Knoxville R. Kalyanaraman, University of Tennessee, Knoxville P.D. Rack, University of Tennessee, Knoxville |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Conventional silicon photovoltaics lack the ability to absorb the full electromagnetic spectrum arriving from the sun. Nickel silicides are small band-gap semiconductors that effectively engage the near-infrared region, whereas bare silicon does not. Ultra-thin (<100nm) silicon structures incorporated with nickel silicides have been synthesized and characterized and have shown enhanced absorption from 750-3000nm wavelengths. Four different structures were constructed via a combination of sputtering, co-sputtering and laser irradiation and their optical and electrical characteristics were compared. In one case, the nickel is deposited and reacted between the p and the n+ silicon regions; in another, nickel is co-sputtered along with p-Si and co-sputtered with n+ silicon; and finally nickel is co-sputtered with silicon followed by laser irradiation to form nickel silicide nanoparticles via pulsed laser induced dewetting. This last structure contains non-patterned nanoparticles (<50nm) in close proximity to a pn junction after capping the former with the p and n+ silicon. In this presentation we will correlate the material composition and micro and nanostructure by STEM and EELS to the observed optical and photovoltaic responses and demonstrate effective media approximations for the observed optical properties.