Doping of amorphous and microcrystalline silicon films by hot-wire CVD and RFPECVD at low substrate temperatures on plastic substrates

ABSTRACTDeposition of n and p-type amorphous (a-Si:H) and microcrystalline (µc-Si:H) silicon thin films on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) at substrate temperatures (Tsub) of 100°C and 25°C (RT) prepared by hot-wire (HW) chemical vapor deposition and radio-frequency (RF) plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition is studied as a function of hydrogen dilution. Doping is achieved by addition of phosphine (ntype) and diborane (p-type) to the gas phase reactive mixture. At Tsub=100°C, n-type a-Si:H is obtained by HW with dark conductivity σd10−4 ω−1cm−1 and by RF with σd~10−3 ω−1cm−1. P-type a-Si:H is obtained by HW with σd=8×10−7 ω−1cm−1 and by RF with σd=6×10−7 ω−1cm−1. Decreasing the temperature of deposition to 25°C decreases the sd of RF n-type amorphous samples to 5×10−5 ω−1cm−1 but the σd of p-type samples remains unchanged. RT HW a-Si:H films show a decrease of sd both for ntype film (σd=4×10−6 ω−1cm−1) and p-type film (σd=1.2×10−7 ω−1cm−1). N-type µc-Si:H was obtained by HW with σd=7×10−2 ω−1cm−1 and by RF with σd>10−2 ω−1cm−1 at 100°C. Using the same Tsub, p-type µc-Si:H was deposited by HW and by RF with σd~0.5 ω−1cm−1. At RT, only p-type µc-Si:H films could be prepared using HW (σd~1 ω−1cm−1) and RF (σd=4×10−3 ω−1cm−1). The structural properties of the films were studied using Raman spectroscopy. The structural and transport properties were correlated.