Fabrication and Characterization of Polycrystalline Silicon Thin Films by Reactive Thermal CVD with Si2H6 and F2

Low-temperature growth of polycrystalline Silicon thin films has been investigated to fabricate thin film transistors by a new thermal CVD with the reactive source gases, Si2H6 and F2, resulting in the film growth at a low-temperature less than 500°C. In order to establish the optimal condition, gas pressure, total gas flow rate of Si2H6+F2 and He as a carrier gas, and residence time, τ, were tuned. Deposition rates and film crystallinity were influenced by the gas flow rations. The growth rate was 3.2-4.2[nm/min] and film uniformity was within ±6.5% over 4cm2 area. High crystallinity films showed a sharp peak at 520[cm-1] in Raman spectra whose full width at half maximum was 6-8[cm-1]. The high crystallinity even at the early stage of film growth was confirmed by transmission electron microscopy. The conductivity and activation energy is on the order of 10-5-10-6 [S/cm] and 0.53[eV], respectively, after hydrogenation. We fabricated poly-Si bottom-gate TFT that have field effect mobility as high as 32.3cm2/Vs and on/off current ratio of 104.