TITLE:
Low Temperature Growth of Hydrogenated Silicon Prepared by PECVD from Argon Diluted Silane Plasma
AUTHORS:
Rachid Amrani, Pascale Abboud, Larbi Chahed, Yvan Cuminal
KEYWORDS:
Silicon; PECVD; Deposition Rate; Amorphous Nanocrystalline Transition; Argon; Low Temperature
JOURNAL NAME:
Crystal Structure Theory and Applications,
Vol.1 No.3,
December
31,
2012
ABSTRACT: In order to contribute to the understanding of the optoelectronics properties of hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon thin films, a detailed study has been conducted. The samples were deposited by 13.56 MHz PECVD (Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition) of silane argon mixture. The argon dilution of silane for all samples studied was 96% by volume. The substrate temperature was fixed at 200oC. The influence of depositions parameters on optical proprieties of samples was studied by UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopy. The structural evolution was studied by Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Intrinsic-layer samples depositions were made in this experiment in order to obtain the transition from the amorphous to crystalline phase materials. The deposition pressure varied from 400 mTorr to 1400 mTorr and the rf power from 50 to 250 W. The structural evolution studies show that beyond 200 W, we observed an amorphous-nanocrystalline transition, with an increase in crystalline fraction by increasing rf power and working pressure. Films near the amorphous to nanocrystalline transition region are grown at reasonably high deposition rates (~10 /s), which are highly desirable for the fabrication of cost effective devices. The deposition rate increases with increasing rf power and process pressure. Different crystalline fractions (21% to 95%) and crystallite size (6 - 16 nm) can be achieved by controlling the process pressure and rf power. These structural changes are well correlated to the variation of optical proprieties of the thin films.