Stability of high temperature chemical vapor deposited silicon based structures on metals for solar conversion

Highly crystallized silicon layers were grown on metal sheets at high temperature (950 degrees C) by thermal CVD from silane. An intermediate buffer layer was mandatory to prevent interdiffusion and silicide formation but also to compensate lattice parameters and thermal expansion coefficients mismatches between metal and silicon and ideally transfer some crystalline properties (grain size, texture) from the substrate to the silicon layer. After a thermodynamic study, aluminum nitride or titanium nitride diffusion barrier layers were selected and processed by CVD. The structure and the interfaces stabilities of these silicon/nitride/metal stacks were studied by field effect gun scanning and transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Raman and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. As a result, TiN deposited by CVD appears to be an efficient material as a buffer layer between steel and silicon.