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AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsTakaharu Kondo, Masafumi Sano, Akira Sakai, Yasuyoshi Takai, Ryo Hayashi, Toshihiro Yamashita
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The method of the present invention is a method of forming a silicon-based semiconductor layer by introducing a source gas into a vacuum vessel and forming a silicon-based semiconductor layer containing a microcrystal on a substrate introduced into the vacuum vessel by plasma CVD, which comprises a first step of forming a first region with a source gas containing halogen atoms, and a second step of forming a second region on the first region under a condition where the source gas containing halogen atoms in the second step is lower in gas concentration than that of the first step, thereby providing a method of forming a silicon-based semiconductor layer having an excellent photoelectric characteristic at a film forming rate of an industrially practical level and a photovoltaic element using the silicon-based semiconductor layer formed by the method.
A method of forming a silicon-based thin film, which comprises introducing a source gas into a vacuum vessel, and forming a silicon-based thin film containing a microcrystal having a crystal grain size of 10 nm or more in Scherrer radius on a substrate introduced into the vacuum vessel by plasma CVD, wherein a first silicon-based thin film region is formed with a source gas containing silicon halide and hydrogen by high frequency plasma CVD using microwave, and then a second silicon-based thin film region is formed to be stacked on the first silicon-based thin film region by high frequency plasma CVD using VHF.
A photovoltaic element comprising semiconductor layers having at least one pin junction on a substrate, at leas t one i-type semiconductor layer of the photovoltaic element comprising a silicon-based thin film formed by a method of forming a silicon-based thin film, which comprises introducing a source gas into a vacuum vessel, and forming a silicon-based thin film containing a microcrystal having a crystal grain size of 10 nm or more in Scherrer radius on the substrate introduced into the vacuum vessel by plasma CVD, the silicon-based thin film comprising a first silicon-based thin film region and a second silicon-based thin film region, wherein the first silicon-based thin film region is formed with a source gas containing silicon halide and hydrogen by high frequency plasma CVD using microwave, and then the second silicon-based thin film region is formed to be stacked on the first silicon-based thin film region by high frequency plasma CVD using VHF.
A method of forming a silicon-based semiconductor layer by introducing a source gas into a vacuum vessel and forming a silicon-based semiconductor layer containing a microcrystal on a substrate introduced into the vacuum vessel by plasma CVD, which comprises a first step of forming a first region with a source gas containing halogen atoms, and a second step of forming a second region on the first region under a condition where the source gas containing halogen atoms is absent or a condition where the source gas containing halogen atoms has a concentration lower than that in the first step.
A photovoltaic element comprising a silicon-based semiconductor layer containing a microcrystal and composed of at least a first region and a second region stacked on the first region, wherein a first region contains halogen atoms, and a second region has a content of halogen atoms smaller than that in the first region.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.