Effect of thermal annealing and nitrogen content on amorphous silicon thin-film crystallization

✍ Scribed by Bouridah, H. ;Mansour, F. ;Mahamdi, R. ;Bounar, N. ;Temple-Boyer, P.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 388 KB
• Volume: 204
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0031-8965
• DOI: 10.1002/pssa.200623060

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

We study the influence of high‐temperature annealing (1100–1200 °C) on the crystallization of nitrogen‐doped silicon films deposited by LPCVD (low‐pressure chemical vapor deposition) at low temperature (465 °C) from disilane Si~2~H~6~ and ammonia NH~3~. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X‐ray diffraction, studies of films are used to analyze crystallinity evolution and grain orientations. Results show the transformation of films deposited in amorphous phase to a typically polycrystalline structure after high‐temperature annealing with a large grain size exceeding 1 μm. The structural properties are strongly influenced by the annealing conditions and the nitrogen ratio in each film. It is shown that the film crystallinity increases with the duration of annealing, and that the nitrogen content inhibits the crystallization phenomena. (© 2007 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)