Abstract
To induce an amorphous surface in a nano-crystalline silicon (nc-Si:H) thin film, the hydrogen dilution was reduced step-wise at fixed time intervals from 90 – 50% during the hotwire chemical vapour deposition process. This contribution reports on the structural properties of the resultant nc-Si:H thin film as a function of the deposition time. Raman spectroscopy, confirmed by high resolution transmission spectroscopy, indicates crystalline uniformity in the growth direction, accompanied by the progression of an amorphous surface layer as the deposition time is increased. The silicon- and oxygen bonding configurations were probed using infrared spectroscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy. The growth mechanism is ascribed to the improved etching rate by atomic hydrogen in nano-crystalline silicon towards the film/substrate interface region. The optical properties were calculated by applying the effective medium approximation theory, where the existence of bulk and interfacial layers, as inferred from cross-sectional microscopy, were taken into account.
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