Correlation between Volume Fraction of Silicon Clusters in Amorphous Silicon Films and Optical Emission Properties of Si^*and SiH^*

Abstract

The volume fraction of silicon clusters in amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) films has been investigated using specially designed quartz crystal microbalances (QCMs) together with optical emission spectroscopy (OES). The optical emission intensities of Si* and SiH* and their intensity ratios are selected for comparison with the QCM results. We show that the volume fraction of silicon clusters strongly correlates with not only the electron temperature but also the SiH* intensity. This suggests that the ratios of Si*/SiH* and SiH* can be used to predict the volume fraction of Si clusters in a-Si:H films.

Identification and Suppression of Si-H₂Bond Formation at P/I Interface in a-Si:H Films Deposited by SiH₄Plasma CVD

“…Cluster incorporation into films contributes to Si-H 2 bond formation in the films [11][12][13][14][15]. SiH 3 radicals are the main deposition precursors for high-quality a-Si:H films, while Si-H 2 bonds are also formed by surface reactions of SiH 3 radicals [16][17][18]. Therefore, suppressing cluster incorporation as well as tuning the surface reactions of SiH 3 radicals is required to form highly stable a-Si:H films.…”

Formation of carbon nanoparticle using Ar+CH4high pressure nanosecond discharges

“…For instance, surface modification of Si nanoparticles has been realized using twin plasmas [6]. Formation kinetics of nanoparticles in low pressure non-thermal plasmas and in high pressure thermal plasmas and their applications have been extensively studied [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26], while nanoparticle synthesis using high pressure non-thermal plasmas has been attracted relatively little attention. For the high pressure thermal plasmas such as arc plasmas, a large amount of radicals are produced by high density plasmas at high gas pressure and hence productivity of nanoparticles is high.…”