초록
We studied the fabrication of polycrystalline silicon (pc-Si) films as seed layers for application of pc-Si thin film solar cells, in which amorphous silicon (a-Si) films in a structure of glass/Al/$Al_2O_3$/a-Si are crystallized by the aluminum-induced layer exchange (ALILE) process. The properties of pc-Si films formed by the ALILE process are strongly determined by the oxide layer as well as the various process parameters like annealing temperature, time, etc. In this study, the effects of the oxide film thickness on the crystallization of a-Si in the ALILE process, where the thickness of $Al_2O_3$ layer was varied from 4 to 50 nm. For preparation of the experimental film structure, aluminum (~300 nm thickness) and a-Si (~300 nm thickness) layers were deposited using DC sputtering and PECVD method, respectively, and $Al_2O_3$ layer with the various thicknesses by RF sputtering. The crystallization of a-Si was then carried out by the thermal annealing process using a furnace with the in-situ microscope. The characteristics of the produced pc-Si films were analyzed by optical microscope (OM), scanning electron microscope (SEM), Raman spectrometer, and X-ray diffractometer (XRD). As results, the crystallinity was exponentially decayed with the increase of $Al_2O_3$ thickness and the grain size showed the similar tendency. The maximum pc-Si grain size fabricated by ALILE process was about $45{\mu}m$ at the $Al_2O_3$ layer thickness of 4 nm. The preferential crystal orientation was <111> and more dominant with the thinner $Al_2O_3$ layer. In summary, we obtained a pc-Si film not only with ${\sim}45{\mu}m$ grain size but also with the crystallinity of about 75% at 4 nm $Al_2O_3$ layer thickness by ALILE process with the structure of a glass/Al/$Al_2O_3$/a-Si.
