Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 34 (1995) pp. 442-449  |Next Article|  |Table of Contents|
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Roles of Atomic Hydrogen in Chemical Annealing

Kenjiro Nakamura, Kunihiko Yoshino, Shinya Takeoka, Isamu Shimizu

(Received September 20, 1994; accepted for publication November 19, 1994)

A systematic study has been performed to reveal the role of atomic hydrogen in chemical annealing, where the deposition of a thin layer and treatment with atomic hydrogen are repeated alternately, for the fabrication of a stable structure. Structural relaxation resulting from impingement of atomic hydrogen on the growing surface is differentiated into two processes: the structural promoted relaxation on the surface and changes caused within the sub-surface depending on the conditions for deposition of the thin layer and the flux of atomic hydrogen. The structural changes within the sub-surface resulted in either the widening of the optical gap or crystallization at rather low substrate temperatures (T _s: 100-150° C). High-quality a-Si:H with the optical gap of 1.87 eV exhibiting rather high stability against light soaking was successfully fabricated by this technique. The defect density of the film was 4×10¹⁵ cm^-3 in its well annealed state and 6×10¹⁶ cm^-3 in the saturated state. At high T _s, on the other hand, the hydrogen treatment mainly enhanced chemical activities of the growing surface and resulted in either narrowing of the optical gap or promotion of the grain growth.

URL: http://jjap.jsap.jp/link?JJAP/34/442/
DOI: 10.1143/JJAP.34.442

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