Tailored voltage waveform deposition of microcrystalline silicon thin films from hydrogen-diluted silane and silicon tetrafluoride: Optoelectronic properties of films

The use of tailored voltage waveforms (TVW's) to excite a plasma for the deposition of thin films of hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si:H) has been shown to be an effective technique to decouple mean ion bombardment energy (IBE) from injected power. In this work, we examine the changes in material properties controlled by this technique through Raman scattering and spectroscopic ellipsometry for films deposited from H2-diluted SiH4, and we examine the electrical properties of such films using temperature dependent conductivity. As the laboratory-scale deposition system used had neither a load lock nor an oxygen filter in the H2 line, accidental O-doping was observed for the μc-Si:H films. We investigated suppression of this doping by adding varying amounts of SiF ₄, and using an SiF ₄/Ar pre-etch step to clean the reactor. This technique is shown to be effective in decreasing the accidental doping of the films, and intrinsic μc-Si:H films are produced with an activation energy of up to 0.55 eV. As well, an important difference in the amorphous-to-microcrystalline transition is observed once SiF4 is included in the gas mixture.