ESR Study of Crystallization of Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon Thin Films
Electron-spin-resonance (ESR) is used to investigate the evolution of the local order surrounding the dangling bonds produced by hydrogen effusion in a-Si:H thin films prepared by both plasma-enhanced-chemical-vapor-deposition (PECVD) and hot-wire CVD (HWCVD). At 560 C, the HWCVD sample fully crystallizes after {approx}800 min, while the sample made by PECVD does not crystallize. The PECVD sample crystallizes at a higher temperature (580 C) and after a much longer annealing time ({Delta}t = 1300 min). The ESR signal of the defects in both samples remains at about 5 x 10{sup 18} cm{sup -3} as long as the sample remains amorphous during the grain nucleation period. In both HWCVD and PECVD samples, as the crystallites appear, the defect densities gradually decrease and saturate at about 3 x 10{sup 17} cm{sup -3} as the crystallization is completed.
- Research Organization:
- National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC36-08GO28308
- OSTI ID:
- 978494
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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