T.F.G. Muller

Comparative study: the effect of annealing conditions on the properties of P3HT:PCBM blends

This paper presents a detailed study on the role of various annealing treatments on organic poly(3-hexylthiophene) and [6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester blends under different experimental conditions. A combination of analytical tools is used to study the alteration of the phase separation, structure and photovoltaic properties of the P3HT:PCBM blend during the annealing process. Results showed that the thermal annealing yields PCBM “needle-like” crystals and that prolonged heat treatment leads to extensive phase separation, as demonstrated by the growth in the size and quantity of PCBM crystals. The substrate annealing method demonstrated an optimal morphology by eradicating and suppressing the formation of fullerene clusters across the film, resulting in longer P3HT fibrils with smaller diameter. Improved optical constants, PL quenching and a decrease in the P3HT optical bad-gap were demonstrated for the substrate annealed films due to the limited diffusion of the PCBM molecules. An effective strategy for determining an optimized morphology through substrate annealing treatment is therefore revealed for improved device efficiency.

Adsorption of phosphoric acid anions on platinum (111)

The adsorption of phosphoric acid anions on the platinum (111) plane is investigated using Monte Carlo and density functional theory methods. The minimum energy structure is used to generate the adsorption configurations, indicating the preferred adsorption sites. The bond lengths was found from density functional theory calculations and used to gain further insight on the structure due to adsorption. From the density functional calculations the scanning tunnelling microscopy image of the specie with the lowest adsorption energy configuration and shortest bond length was produced.

Oxidation Reduction in Nanocrystalline Silicon Grown by Hydrogen-Profiling Technique

The deposition of a compact amorphous silicon/nano-crystalline silicon material is demonstrated by hot-wire chemical vapour deposition using a sequential hydrogen profiling technique at low hydrogen dilutions. Nano-crystallite nucleation occurs at the substrate interface that develops into a uniform, porous crystalline structure as the growth progresses. A further reduction in the H-dilution results in the onset of a dense amorphous silicon layer. The average crystalline volume fraction and nano-crystallite size in the sample bulk amounts to 30% and 6 nm, respectively, as probed by Raman spectroscopy using the 647 nm excitation. The change in hydrogen dilution is accompanied by a graded hydrogen concentration depth-profile, where the hydrogen concentration decreases as the growth progresses. The level of post-deposition oxidation is considerably reduced, as inferred from infrared spectroscopy. The presence of oxygen is mainly confined to the substrate interface as a result of thermal oxidation during thin film growth.

Depth-dependent crystallinity of nano-crystalline silicon induced by step-wise variation of hydrogen dilution during hot-wire CVD

To induce an amorphous surface in a nano-crystalline silicon (nc-Si:H) thin film, the hydrogen dilution was reduced step-wise at fixed time intervals from 90 – 50% during the hotwire chemical vapour deposition process. This contribution reports on the structural properties of the resultant nc-Si:H thin film as a function of the deposition time. Raman spectroscopy, confirmed by high resolution transmission spectroscopy, indicates crystalline uniformity in the growth direction, accompanied by the progression of an amorphous surface layer as the deposition time is increased. The silicon- and oxygen bonding configurations were probed using infrared spectroscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy. The growth mechanism is ascribed to the improved etching rate by atomic hydrogen in nano-crystalline silicon towards the film/substrate interface region. The optical properties were calculated by applying the effective medium approximation theory, where the existence of bulk and interfacial layers, as inferred from cross-sectional microscopy, were taken into account.

Investigation of isochronal annealing on the optical properties of HWCVD amorphous silicon nitride deposited at low temperatures and low gas flow rates

Hydrogenated amorphous silicon nitride (a-SiNx:H) is used as anti-reflection coatings in commercial solar cells. A final firing step in the production of micro-crystalline silicon solar cells allows hydrogen effusion from the a-SiNx:H into the solar cell, and contributes to bulk passivation of the grain boundaries. In this study a-SiNx:H deposited in a hot-wire chemical vapour deposition (HWCVD) chamber with reduced gas flow rates and filament temperature compared to traditional deposition regimes, were annealed isochronally. The UV-visible reflection spectra of the annealed material were subjected to the Bruggeman Effective Medium Approximation (BEMA) treatment, in which a theoretical amorphous semiconductor was combined with particle inclusions due to the structural complexities of the material. The extraction of the optical functions and ensuing Wemple-DeDomenici analysis of the wavelength-dependent refractive index allowed for the correlation of the macroscopic optical properties with the changes in the local atomic bonding configuration, involving silicon, nitrogen and hydrogen.