In-situ monitoring and control of hydrogenated amorphous silicon–germanium band-gap profiling during plasma deposition process

• Optical emission spectroscopic investigation for the effects of plasma deposition conditions.
• a-SiGe:H film band-gap controlling by SiH4 and GeH4 gas flow ratio.
• Ge contents monitoring by emission intensity ratio.
• Effects of electron temperature on Ge atom concentration.

In-situ germanium content monitoring and its characteristics in SiH4/GeH4/H2 plasmas was studied during hydrogenated amorphous silicon–germanium (a-SiGe:H) film depositions. Since an appropriate band-gap profiling in a-SiGe:H deposition is very important to achieve high efficiency solar cell, the accurate monitoring and control of Ge contents are required. In this work, we found the spectral intensity ratio of silicon atom (288.2 nm) and germanium atom (303.9 nm) emission has strong relation with Ge content in plasmas. In typical, band-gap energy of films was decreased with the increasing of gas flow ratio GeH4/SiH4. However, at different total flow rate of GeH4, the band-gap was different for same gas flow ratio cases because the Ge content in plasmas was changed due to the changes of electron temperature by hydrogen dilution. On the other hand, the emission intensity ratio Ge/Si detected the band-gap variation. Using this method, therefore, we measured and control Ge/Si to make a U-shape band-gap profile which was proved by an ellipsometer and Auger electron spectroscopy depth profile analysis.