Structural and optical properties of silicon thin-films deposited by hot-wire chemical vapor deposition: The effects of silane concentrations

In this paper, the structural and optical properties of a series of silicon (Si) thin-films deposited using hot-wire chemical vapor deposition with different silane concentrations (SCs) are presented. All the films are characterized by Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and photoluminescence (PL). In the Raman analysis, the first order and specifically the second order Raman spectra indicate increase in crystalline grain size as well as crystalline volume fraction in the films with a reduction in SC, which is also confirmed by the SEM analysis. At the higher SC, the Si microcrystalline grains get embedded in the nanocrystalline Si network. The Gaussian fitted peaks in the PL analysis reveal the emission due to either band to band tail-state transitions or tail-state to mid-gap defect-state transitions due to Si-dangling bonds present in the films.