Deposition of nanocryctalline silicon thin films: Effect of total pressure and substrate temperature

The structural changes in intrinsic silicon thin films are investigated as a function of the total pressure (2 to 4 Pa) and substrate temperature (room temperature to 200 °C). Infrared absorption, Raman spectroscopy and high resolution transmission electron microscopy are applied to characterize the films. The results indicate that the films grown at 2 Pa are completely amorphous, while at 3 and 4 Pa, crystallization occurs at temperature as low as room temperature. These structural changes are well correlated to the variation of the room temperature conductivity, which increases up to about eight orders of magnitude for the nanocrystallized films. A crystalline volume fraction varying from 71 to about 90% is also observed. The growth mechanism of the nanocrystalline films is also discussed in the framework of the reported models.