Preparation and Properties of Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon Produced by Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Decomposition of Silane

The system used to deposit samples was developed at MIT by T. J. Donahue, W. R. Burger and R. Reif for depositing uniform, specular silicon epitaxial layers at temperatures as low as 650C utilizing infrared lamp heaters, at pressures 10 mTorr both with and without plasma-enhancement. However, for this study nine samples were deposited at temperatures 650C, at pressures of ~20 mTorr with plasma. After characterization, it was concluded that these samples were hydrogenated amorphous silicon and growth rates were dependent on at least three factors: (1) rf power, (2) the voltage applied to the IR lamp heaters, and (3) the thickness of the residue deposited on the reactor walls.