Unusual hydrogen distribution and its change in hydrogenated amorphous silicon prepared using bias electric-field molecular beam deposition

Abstract

Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) films prepared using a molecular beam deposition (MBD) method show an unusually sharp, narrow infrared absorption peak at 2080–2090cm−1, which is thought to result from surface SiH species in the a-Si:H. The sharp, narrow peak is eliminated by a bias electric field of several kilovolts during deposition. The absence or presence of incoming high-energy silicon atoms or clusters accelerated by the field seems to be crucial for the resulting network structure and hydrogen distribution in a-Si:H prepared using MBD.