2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Nano-crystalline germanium films for thermo-photovoltaic devises
| Project/Area Number |
23560057
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Applied physics, general
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| Research Institution | Tokai University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2011 – 2013
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| Keywords | 熱光発電 / ゲルマニウム / スパッター / プラズマ電位 / カソードバイアス |
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| Research Abstract |
We have researched nano-crystalline germanium (nc-Ge) as a material of a photovoltaic device for infrared light from solar thermal and thermal waste. The nc-Ge was fabricated by a radio-frequency (RF) sputtering method, which is expected as a low-cost production method. However, positive ions are accelerated by the plasma potential and cause ion-damage to the fabricated nc-Ge in the sputtering process. We successfully reduced the plasma potential by applying negative DC bias voltage to the cathode of the RF sputtering for the first time. When the negative DC cathode bias voltage was lower than the self-bias voltage, the plasma potential was effectively reduced. The improvement of crystallinity in the nc-Ge samples was also observed with decreasing the negative DC cathode bias to lower values than the self-bias voltage, so we could attain the reduction of the plasma damage in the RF sputtering process.
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