Intrinsic microcrystalline silicon by postgrowth anneals

2001 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 1531-1534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jong-Hwan Yoon

Hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si:H) grown by a conventional plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition from high hydrogen-diluted silane was annealed by increasing the temperature from 25 to 450 °C at a constant rate of 12 °C/min (one annealing cycle). Dark-conductivity activation energy gradually increases with increasing the number of annealing cycle to a saturation value of about 0.6 eV, observed in truly intrinsic μc-Si:H films. For the saturated state, the dark conductivity of the order of 10−8 S/cm was obtained. Little or no change in the oxygen content was observed after the annealing.

2001 ◽  
Vol 664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jong-Hwan Yoon

ABSTRACTUndoped µc-Si:H film of the strong n-type character with the dark conductivity activation energy of about 0.28 eV was annealed. Annealing was carried out by slowly increasing the temperature from 25 °C to 450 °C at a constant rate of 12 °C/min (one annealing cycle). Annealing effects were monitored by measuring the changes in dark conductivity, oxygen and hydrogen concentrations, and photoluminescence (PL). Dark conductivity activation energy gradually increases with increasing the number of annealing cycles to a saturation value of about 0.6 eV. There is little or no change in the oxygen concentration, but the hydrogen concentration decreases with increasing the number of annealing cycles. The PL band near 1.2 eV disappears with annealing, while the low energy PL band near 0.85 eV dominates rather as the number of annealing cycles increases. A possible explanation will be discussed.


1993 ◽  
Vol 297 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Gaughan ◽  
ZHAOHUI Lin ◽  
J.M. Viner ◽  
P.C. Taylor ◽  
P.C. Mathur

N-type amorphous silicon films were grown using a mixture of silane and tertiarybutylphosphine (TBP-C4H11P) vapor in a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition system. The concentration of TBP in silane was varied from 0 to 3% by volume. As expected, at low doping levels, the photoluminescence (PL) intensity associated with both the band-tail recombination (peak at 1.3 eV) and deep-defect recombination (peak at 0.8 eV) decreased as the impurity concentration increased, but for TBP concentrations > 0.1% the PL intensity increased again. For moderate doping levels the activation energy for conductivity leveled off at ∼ 0.2 eV. For concentrations of TBP > 0.1% the activation energy for dark conductivity increased. A shift in the optical gap was observed for the highest impurity concentrations due to the incorporation of carbon from the TBP. These results are interpreted as a pronounced decrease in the doping efficiency for heavily doped films (> 0.1%) perhaps influenced by the increased carbon concentration.


1991 ◽  
Vol 219 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. J. Williams ◽  
C. Wang ◽  
G. Lucovsky

ABSTRACTUndoped films of μc-Si deposited by RPECVD are n-type with a room temperature dark conductivity of ∼6×10-4 S/cm and an activation energy of ∼0.3 eV. This is due to native donor-like defects. We report on the conductivity and photoconductivity of boron-doped μc-Si, with emphasis on low doping levels that are designed to compensate exactly these native donor-like defects. We describe the dark conductivity and the photoconductivity as functions of dark conductivity activation energy and the average boron concentration, and present a model for the photoconductivity based on band off sets between the crystalline and amorphous regions of the μc-Si.


2001 ◽  
Vol 664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maribeth Swiatek ◽  
Jason K. Holt ◽  
Harry A. Atwater

ABSTRACTWe apply a rate-equation pair binding model of nucleation kinetics [1] to the nucleation of Si islands grown by hot-wire chemical vapor deposition on SiO2 substrates. Previously, we had demonstrated an increase in grain size of polycrystalline Si films with H2 dilution from 40 nm using 100 mTorr of 1% SiH4 in He to 85 nm with the addition of 20 mTorr H2. [2] This increase in grain size is attributed to atomic H etching of Si monomers rather than stable Si clusters during the early stages of nucleation, decreasing the nucleation density. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements show that the nucleation density increases sublinearly with time at low coverage, implying a fast nucleation rate until a critical density is reached, after which grain growth begins. The nucleation density decreases with increasing H2 dilution (H2:SiH4), which is an effect of the etching mechanism, and with increasing temperature, due to enhanced Si monomer diffusivity on SiO2. From temperature-dependent measurements, we estimate the activation energy for surface diffusion of Si monomers on SiO2 to be 0.47 ± 0.09 eV. Simulations of the temperature-dependent supercritical cluster density lead to an estimated activation energy of 0.42 eV ± 0.01 eV and a surface diffusion coefficient prefactor of 0.1 ± 0.03 cm2/s. H2-dilution-dependent simulations of the supercritical cluster density show an approximately linear relationship between the H2 dilution and the etch rate of clusters.


1996 ◽  
Vol 423 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Mirzakuchaki ◽  
H. Golestanian ◽  
E. J. Charlson ◽  
T. Stacy

AbstractAlthough many researchers have studied boron-doped diamond thin films in the past several years, there have been few reports on the effects of doping CVD-grown diamond films with phosphorous. For this work, polycrystalline diamond thin films were grown by hot filament chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD) on p-type silicon substrates. Phosphorous was introduced into the reaction chamber as an in situ dopant during the growth. The quality and orientation of the diamond thin films were monitored by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Current-voltage (I-V) data as a function of temperature for golddiamond film-silicon-aluminum structures were measured. The activation energy of the phosphorous dopants was calculated to be approximately 0.29 eV.


1988 ◽  
Vol 126 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Mel ◽  
S. A. Schwarz ◽  
T. Venkatesan ◽  
C. L. Schwartz ◽  
E. Colas

ABSTRACTTe enhanced mixing of AlAs/GaAs superlattice has been observed by secondary ion mass spectrometry. The superlattice sample was grown by organometallic chemical vapor deposition and doped with Te at concentrations of 2×1017 to 5×1018 cm−.3 In the temperature range from 700 to 1000 C, a single activation energy for the Al diffusion of 2.9 eV was observed. Furthermore, it has been found that the relationship between the Al diffusion coefficient and Te concentration is linear. Comparisons have been made between Si and Te induced superlattice mixing.


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