The determinants of hydrogen concentrations in hydrogenated amorphous silicon films prepared using a triode deposition system

Abstract

It is important to reduce the hydrogen concentration, in particular, the Si–H2 bond concentration, in a hydrogenated amorphous silicon film to improve its light-soaking stability. In a previous study, we found that a triode configuration plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition method provides high quality and a very low hydrogen concentration film; however, the origin of the hydrogen reduction has been unknown. In this article, we investigate the essential factor causing the very low hydrogen concentrations observed in the triode system. In several experiments, we observed strong influences of deposition precursors on the resulting hydrogen concentrations. We propose that due to a steric hindrance, the hydrogen elimination process during film growth is disturbed when higher silane radicals stick to a growth surface. In a triode system, corresponding with the separation of the film growth surface from the precursor generation region, the contribution of higher silane radicals to film growth is suppressed due to their short diffusion length and frequent collisions with silane molecules.