Deposition and crystallization of a-Si thin films by rapid thermal processing

Abstract

The deposition and crystallization of a-Si thin films grown by rapid thermal processing have been studied, using transmission electron microscopy. The a-Si films were deposited in a rapid thermal processor at reduced pressures in the temperature range of 530–580°C, at different deposition pressures and silane flow rates and subsequently were annealed in-situ by high temperature rapid thermal annealing (RTA) or by a two-step annealing process involving low temperature furnace annealing (FA) followed by high temperature RTA. The activation energy of a-Si deposition was found to be approximately 1.7 eV, in reasonable agreement with the conventional LPCVD technique. It has been found that the deposition temperature and deposition rate have a strong effect on the grain size, which is attributed to the nucleation processes in the bulk of the films. The combination of low deposition temperature, high deposition rate and a two-step annealing process permits the low temperature growth of poly-Si films of 100 nm thickness, with large grains of 520 nm size, containing a low density of microtwins and characterized by very low surface roughness of 2.2 nm.