Real time measurements of charged gas phase nuclei during the deposition of silicon thin films by hot wire chemical vapor deposition

It has been experimentally confirmed that charged nanoparticles tend to be generated in many chemical vapor deposition (CVD) processes. In an effort to confirm and measure charged silicon gas phase nuclei, that might be generated during hot wire CVD (HWCVD) of silicon, a particle beam mass spectrometer (PBMS) was used to measure a size distribution of nanoparticles under the deposition condition of silicon thin films. For better understanding of the generation of the charged nanoparticles in the gas phase, silicon gas phase nuclei were captured on a transmitted electron microscopy (TEM) grid membrane at the same conditions as the silicon film deposition. The PBMS measurements showed that both positively and negatively charged silicon nanoparticles were abundantly generated in the gas phase. Besides, the TEM images showed that the captured silicon nanoparticles had crystalline lattices.