Low filament temperature deposition of a-Si:H by hot-wire chemical vapor deposition

Abstract

Hydrogenated amorphous silicon, a-Si:H, is deposited from silane and hydrogen by hot-wire chemical vapor deposition using a tungsten wire filament at a temperature Tfil=1200 °C. Film properties depend on whether the films were deposited using filaments with an accumulated deposition time lower than 90 min (‘‘new’’ filaments) or longer than 90 min (‘‘old’’ filaments). The deposition rate for films deposited with ‘‘new’’ filaments is 4 times higher than that for aged filaments. For ‘‘new’’ filaments, a monotonic increase of the growth rate, rd, with the pressure is observed, as well as a maximum of rd for FH2/FSiH4 close to unity. The optoelectronic properties are controlled by the substrate temperature Tsub, and show different dependences for ‘‘new’’ and ‘‘old’’ filaments. The Urbach band tail energy, Eu, is lower for films deposited with ‘‘new’’ filaments. A kinetic growth model for hot-wire chemical vapor deposition in the Tfil∼1200 °C regime is proposed.