Abstract
a-Si:H layers were grown by glow discharge deposition at various temperatures (150, 250 and 350°C) on stainless steel, Corning glass and optical quality glass substrates coated with tin oxide. The thicknesses of the a-Si:H films varied from 1 to 4 microm. The surface and the fracture of the a-Si:H layers were investigated by means of scanning electron microscopy. For stainless steel the surface texture of the substrate propagated through the a-Si:H film even when it was 2 microm thick. At higher deposition temperatures the a-Si:H layer peeled off the stainless steel, but this did not occur for glass substrates. This shows that the stresses in films on metal substrates are different from those in films on glass substrates. Therefore the nucleation phenomena are dependent on the substrate material. A columnar morphology, which was enhanced and coarsened on increasing the temperature and the thickness, was observed on glass substrates. A simple explanation, which takes the self-bias effect of the substrate and the temperature dependence of the adatom mobility into account, is given for this observation.
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