Highly crystallized silicon films grown on glass without amorphous incubation layers by inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition

Highly crystallized silicon films were deposited on glass by inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition using a SiH4/H-2 mixture as the source gas at a substrate temperature of 350 degrees C. The micro-Raman and X-ray diffraction spectroscopy (XRD) measurements demonstrate that at the constant SiH4 dilution ratio of 10%, the crystallinity of the resultant films increases in concomitance with the change of the preferred orientation from (1 1 1) to (2 2 0) as the total working pressure increases from 20 to 40 Pa. With further increase in the total working pressure to 60 Pa, the crystallinity decreases significantly and the preferred orientation remains at (2 2 0). More studies on film microstructures were performed using spectroscopic ellipsometry and a scanning electron microscope. It was found that film deposition could be achieved without the amorphous incubation layer when the total working pressure was 40 Pa. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.