Toa Nenryo Kogyo, K. K.

Hideo Yamamoto

Mitsuo Matsumura

Osamu Nakamura

Keitaro Fukui

Shigeru Iijima

Toshihiro Yoshida

Kunio Asai

Kazunobu Tanaka

Akihisa Matsuda

Yoshinobu Okayasu

A silicon thin film is composed of primarily silicon atoms, 0 to 8 atm % hydrogen, at least one element selected from the group including fluorine, chlorine, bromine and iodine, and an impurity element, wherein about 80 to 100% of microcrystalline grains are interspersed in an amorphous phase. The thin film is produced by deposition on a substrate in a plasma atmosphere using as a raw material gas silane (SiH.sub.4) or halogenated silane (SiH.sub.o--3 X.sub.4--1) wherein X represents a halogen or a combination of two or more halogens, and a dopant gas mixed with the raw material gas. The method comprises the steps of: (1) diluting the mixed gas with hydrogen in a ratio of the diluting gas to the raw material gas of from 50:1 to 100:1, to control the film deposition rate to produce a layer including mixed crystalline and amorphous substances; and (2) applying an electric power to provide a plasma discharge power density of from 0.1 to about 0.5 W/cm.sup.2, at a reaction pressure of 5 to 10 torr.

Silicon thin film and method of producing the same

This invention discloses a new semiconductor device having no step type p-i-n juctions but rather has a graded p-i-n juction. The semiconductor device shows a high photoelectric conversion efficiency, and since said device can be produced easily with good reproducibility by a plasma discharge method, it is especially suited for use as a solar battery. An apparatus for the production of said semiconductor device is also disclosed.

Method of making graded junction containing amorphous semiconductor

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Ohi, Japan

Hideo Yamamoto