Investigation Of Structural And Optical Properties Of Atomic Layer Deposited Hafnium Nitride Films

Structural and optical properties of atomic layer deposited hafnium nitride films have been investigated in terms of hot carrier solar cell (HCSC) application. To analyze the suitability of hafnium nitride as a hot carrier absorber (HCA) material, phonon band structure is also calculated based on density functional theory (DFT) which shows a large phonon gap between optical and acoustic phonons. It is observed that rapid thermal annealing (RTA) enhances crystallinity and absorption coefficient of the material, however, with heat treatment several oxynitride phases are evident. As the films contains oxygen, potential of oxynitride as HCA should be tested.