Internal stress in Cat-CVD microcrystalline Si:H thin films

Stress in the Cat-CVD μc-Si:H films is of concern for the performance of the flexible solar cells and MEMS devices. We report the results of our initial studies on stress determination of the HWCVD deposited μc-Si:H films and its variation with thermal treatment. From the analysis of the stress values of the intrinsic μc-Si:H films it is seen (at least in the preliminary results obtained) that films deposited around 250 °C show a lower stress which could be due to the better network and optimum hydrogen content in the films. Secondly the doped films show an order of magnitude larger internal stress compared to the intrinsic films while the grain size is comparable. However upon annealing the stress minimizes and we get films with very low stress.