Aligned amorphous and microcrystalline Si nanorods by glancing angle deposition at lowtemperature

Abstract

Aligned amorphous and crystallized silicon nanorods (SiNRs) were successfully fabricatedat low temperatures using radio frequency magnetron sputtering and hot wire chemicalvapor deposition with glancing angle incident flux. The influences of the depositionpressure, sputtering power, substrate rotation and hydrogen dilution ratio onthe diameter, density, orientation and crystallization of the Si nanorods weresystematically investigated. With increasing sputtering power, the density of Si nanorodsdecreases and the diameter of SiNRs increases. The pressure has the oppositeeffect on the growth of SiNRs compared with the sputtering power. By combiningglancing angle deposition (GLAD) with the hydrogen diluted silane in hot wirechemical vapor deposition (HWCVD), aligned crystallized Si nanorods with acrystalline volume fraction of 0.55 were achieved under a substrate temperature of140 °C. The Si nanorods have been tested for photovoltaic application.