METHOD OF PRODUCING AMORPHOUS SILICON FILMS CONTAINING NANOCRYSTALLINE INCLUSIONS Russian patent published in 2014 - IPC B82B1/00 

FIELD: physics, optics.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to optoelectronic engineering and can be used to form an active layer of thin-film solar cells based on hydrogenated silicon with stable parameters relative to light stimulus, particularly solar radiation. The invention consists in a method of forming films of amorphous hydrogenated silicon with a small fraction of silicon nanocrystals (volume ratio of the crystalline phase to the amorphous phase of less than 15%), uniformly distributed in the film and having a size of not more than 10 nm. The method includes depositing the amorphous silicon films by plasma-chemical deposition from a gaseous mixture of silicon tetrafluoride and hydrogen at high pressure in a reaction chamber in conditions which enable to form silicon nanocrystals in the glow-discharge plasma. The presence of a small fraction of uniformly distributed nanocrystalline inclusions in the amorphous matrix markedly improves the stability of electrical, optical and photoelectric properties of the obtained material.

EFFECT: high efficiency and longer service life of thin-film solar converters when an active layer of the material obtained using the said method is used on the said converters.

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