Effects of catalyst-generated atomic hydrogen treatment on amorphous silicon fabricated by Liquid-Si printing

The film property distributions along the thickness direction of the catalyst-generated atomic hydrogen (Cat-H*) treatment effects on hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) fabricated by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (plasma-CVD) and liquid-Si printing (LSP) were systematically investigated. The a-Si:H films fabricated by LSP (L-a-Si:H) had nanosize voids; however, these films showed a decrease in void size around the surface region after Cat-H* treatment, in contrast to stable plasma-CVD films without voids. The decrease in nonaffected area by Cat-H* treatment in L-a-Si:H films improved the performance of a-Si:H solar cells with L-a-Si:H. Additionally, we achieved a 3.1% conversion efficiency for a-Si:H solar cells with L-a-Si:H as the active layer by stacking nondoped a-Si:H, fabricated by plasma-CVD, on the active layer