Articles you may be interested in Molecular adsorption on silicon (001): A systematic evaluation of size effects in slab and cluster models AIP Advances 3, 042117 (2013) Nickel is increasingly used in both IC and photovoltaic device fabrication, yet it has the potential to create highly recombination-active precipitates in silicon. For nearly three decades, the accepted nickel diffusivity in silicon has been D Ni ðTÞ ¼ 2:3  10 À3 expðÀ0:47 eV=k B TÞ cm 2 /s, a surprisingly low value given reports of rapid nickel diffusion in industrial applications. In this paper, we employ modern experimental methods to measure the higher nickel diffusivity D Ni ðTÞ ¼ ð1:69 6 0:74Þ Â 10 À4 expðÀ0:15 6 0:04 eV=k B TÞ cm 2 /s. The measured activation energy is close to that predicted by first-principles theory using the nudged-elastic-band method. Our measured diffusivity of nickel is higher than previously published values at temperatures below 1150 C, and orders of magnitude higher when extrapolated to room temperature. V C 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.

In this work, the influence of electrodes' distance upon the properties of amorphous silicon (a‐Si:H) deposited by plasma‐enhanced chemical vapor deposition method on both intrinsic and doped a‐Si:H films is investigated in terms of their electrical, optical, and structural characteristics. For this purpose, Fourier‐transform infra‐red and secondary‐ion mass‐spectroscopy as well as photoconductance decay, spectral ellipsometry, and conductivity measurements are employed. Electrodes' distance is varied from 20 to 120 mm. Regarding the passivation quality of the a‐Si:H film an optimum electrodes' distance of 60 mm is found. In addition, electrodes' distance is detected to have a great influence on the accelerated initial growth rate, which strongly diminishes with increasing distance. Thus, electrodes' distance also determines the overall thickness of thin intrinsic a‐Si:H films being particularly interesting for utilization in heterojunction solar cells. With doped a‐Si:H films, however, electrodes' distance influences mainly the dopant concentration in the films and therewith their conductivity.

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