Nanocrystalline silicon and silicon quantum dots formation within amorphous silicon carbide by plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition method controlling the Argon dilution of the process gases

Structural and optical properties of the amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC:H) thin films deposited by radio frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition method from a mixture of silane (SiH4) and methane (CH4) diluted in argon (Ar) have been studied with variation of Ar dilution from 94% to 98.4%. It is observed that nanocrystalline silicon starts to form within the a-SiC:H matrix by increasing the dilution to 96%. With further increase in Ar dilution to 98% formation of the silicon nanocrystals (nc-Si) with variable size is enhanced. The optical band gap (Eg) of the a-SiC:H film decreases from 2.0 eV to 1.9 eV with increase in Ar dilution from 96% to 98% as the a-SiC:H films gradually become Si rich. On increasing the Ar dilution further to 98.4% leads to the appearance of crystalline silicon quantum dots (c-Si q-dots) of nearly uniform size of 3.5 nm. The quantum confinement effect is apparent from the sharp increase in the Eg value to 2.6 eV. The phase transformation phenomenon from nc-Si within the a-SiC:H films to Si q-dot were further studied by high resolution transmission electron microscopy and the grazing angle X-ray diffraction spectra. A relaxation in the lattice strain has been observed with the formation of Si q-dots.