Microstructure characterization of transition films from amorphous to nanocrocrystalline silicon

Hydrogenated silicon (Si:H) films near the threshold of crystallinity were prepared by very high-frequency plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (VHF-PECVD) using a wide range of hydrogen dilution R-H = [H-2]/[SiH4] values of 2-100. The effects of H dilution R-H on the structural properties of the films were investigated using micro-Raman scattering and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) absorption spectroscopy. The obtained Raman spectra show that the H dilution leads to improvements in the short-range order and the medium-range order of the amorphous network and then to the morphological transition from amorphous to crystalline states. The onset of this transition locates between R-H = 30 and 40 in our case, and with further increasing R-H from 40 to 100, the nanocrystalline volume fraction increases from similar to23% to 43%, and correspondingly the crystallite size enlarges from similar to2.8 to 4.4 nm. The FTIR spectra exhibit that with R-H increasing, the relative intensities of both the SiH stretching mode component at 2100 cm(-1) and wagging mode component at 620 cm(-1) increase in the same manner. We assert that these variations in IR spectra should be associated with the formation of paracrystalline structures in the low H dilution films and nanocrystalline structures in the high H dilution films. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Preparation and characterization of the stable nc-Si/a-Si : H films

High-quality nc-Si/a-Si:H diphasic films with improved stability were prepared by using the plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition technology. In comparison with typical amorphous silicon, the diphasic silicon films possess higher photoconductivity (two orders larger than that of the amorphous silicon film) and fairly good photosensitivity(the ratio of the photo-to dark-conductivity is about 10) and higher stability (the degradation of the photoconductivity is less than 10% after 24h long light soaking with 50 mW/cm(2) intensity at room temperature). In addition, the diphasic silicon film has a better light spectra response in the longer wavelength range. The improvement in photoelectronic properties may be attributed to: the existence of the disorder within the amorphous matrix, which breaks the momentum selection rule in the optical transition and, consequently, results in the large light absorption coefficient and high photosensitivity; the improved medium range order and low gap states density. Excess carriers generated in the amorphous matrix tend to recombine in the embedded crystallites, which suppresses nonradiative recombination within the amorphous matrix and reduces the subsequent defect creation.

Influence of heated catalyzer on thermal distribution of substrate in HWCVD system

Based on Stefan-Boltzman and Lambert theorems, the radiation energy distribution on substrate (REDS) from catalyzer with parallel filament geometry has been simulated by variation of filament and system layout in hot-wire chemical vapor deposition. The REDS uniformity is sensitive to the distance between filament and substrate d(f-s) when d(f-s) less than or equal to 4 cm. As d(f-s) > 4 cm, the REDS uniformity is independent of d(f-s) and is mainly determined by filament number and filament separation. Two-dimensional calculation shows that the REDS uniformity is limited by temperature decay at filament edges. The simulation data are in good agreement with experiments. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Photoluminesfcence of Er-doped SiO2 films containing Si nanocrystals and Er

Correlations between Si nanocrystal (nc-Si) related photoluminescence (PL), Er3+ emission and nonradiative defects in the Er-doped SiO2 films containing nc-Si (SRSO) are studied. Upon 514.5 nm laser excitation the erbium-doped SRSO samples exhibit PL peaks at around 0.8 and 1.54 mum, which can be assigned to the electron-hole recombination in nc-Si and the intra-4f transition in Er3+, respectively. With increasing Er3+ content in the films, Er3+ emission becomes intense while the PL at 0.8 mum decreases, suggesting a strong coupling of nc-Si and Er 31 ions. Hydrogen plasma treatment for the samples improve the PL intensities of the 0.8 and 1.54 mum bands, indicating H passivation for the nonradiative defects existing in the samples. Further-more, from the effect of hydrogen treatment for the samples, we observe variation of the number of nonradiative defects with annealing temperatures. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Localized exciton dynamics in AlInGaN alloy

Carrier recombination dynamics in AlInGaN alloy has been studied by photoluminescence (PL) and time-resolved PL (TRPL) at various temperatures. The fast red-shift of PL peak energy is observed and well fitted by a physical model considering the thermal activation and transfer processes. This result provides evidence for the exciton localization in the quantum dot (QD)-like potentials in our AlInGaN alloy. The TRPL signals are found to be described by a stretched exponential function of exp[(-t/,tau)13], indicating the presence of a significant disorder in the material. The disorder is attributed to a randomly distributed QDs or clusters caused by indium fluctuations. By studying the dependence of the dispersive exponent beta on temperature and emission energy, we suggest that the exciton hopping dominate the diffusion of carriers localized in the disordered QDs. Furthermore, the localized states are found to have 0D density of states up to 250 K, since the radiative lifetime remains almost unchanged with increasing temperature. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Influence of semi-insulating InP substrates on InAlAs epilayers grown by molecular beam epitaxy

Tensile-strained InAlAs layers have been grown by solid-source molecular beam epitaxy on as-grown Fe-doped semi-insulating (SI) InP substrates and undoped SI InP substrates obtained by annealing undoped conductive InP wafers (wafer-annealed InP). The effect of the two substrates on InAlAs epilayers and InAlAs/InP type II heterostructures has been studied by using a variety of characterization techniques. Our calculation data proved that the out-diffusion of Fe atoms in InP substrate may not take place due to their low diffusion, coefficient. Double-crystal X-ray diffraction measurements show that the lattice mismatch between the InAlAs layers and the two substrates is different, which is originated from their different Fe concentrations. Furthermore, photoluminescence results indicate that the type II heterostructure grown on the wafer-annealed InP substrate exhibits better optical and interface properties than that grown on the as-grown Fe-doped substrate. We have also given a physically coherent explanation on the basis of these investigations. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Epitaxial growth and characterization of SiC on C-plane sapphire substrates by ammonia nitridation

The growth of SiC epilayers on C-face (0 0 0 1) sapphire (alpha-Al2O3) has been performed using CVD method. We found that the quality of SiC epilayers has been improved through the nitridation of substrates by exposing them to ammonia ambient, as compared to growth on bare sapphire substrates. The single crystallinity of these layers was verified by XRD and double crystal XRD measurements. Atomic force microscopy was used to evaluate the surface morphology. Infrared reflectivity and Raman scattering measurement were carried out to investigate the phonon modes in the grown SiC. Detailed Raman analysis identified the 6H nature of the as-grown SiC films. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Fabrication of novel double-hetero-epitaxial SOT structure Si/gamma-Al2O3/Si

In this paper, we report the fabrication of Si-based double-hetero-epitaxial silicon on insulator (SOI) structure Si/gamma-Al2O3/Si. Firstly, single crystalline gamma-Al2O3(100) insulator films were grown epitaxially on Si(100) using the sources of TMA (Al(CH3)(3)) and O-2 by very low-pressure chemical vapor deposition. Afterwards, Si(100) epitaxial films were grown on gamma-Al2O3 (100)/Si(100) epi-substrates using a chemical vapor deposition method similar to the silicon on sapphire epitaxial growth. The Si/gamma-Al2O3/Si SOL materials are characterized in detail by reflect high-energy electron diffraction, X-ray diffraction and Auger energy spectrum (AES) techniques. The insulator layer of gamma-Al2O3 has an excellent dielectric property. The leakage current is less than 1 x 10(-10) A/cm(2) when the electric field is below 1.3 MV/ cm. The Si film grown on gamma-Al2O3/Si epi-substrates was single crystalline. Meanwhile, the AES depth profile of the SOL structure shows that the composition of gamma-Al2O3 film is uniform, and the carbon contamination is not observed. Additionally, the gamma-Al2O3/Si epi-substrates are suitable candidates as a platform for a variety of active layers such as GaN, SiC and GeSi. It shows a bright future for microelectronic and optical electronics applications. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Silicon nanowires grown on a pre-annealed Si substrate

Polycrystalline Si nanowires (poly SiNWS) were successfully synthesized by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) at 440degreesC using silane as the Si source and Au as the catalyst. The diameters of Si nanowires range from 15 to 100nm. The growth process indicates that to fabricate SiNWS by PECVD, pre-annealing at high temperature is necessary. A few interesting nanowires with Au nanoclusters uniformly distributed in the body of the wire were also produced by this technique. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Type-II SiGe/Si MQWS (multi-quantum wells) and self-organized Ge/Si islands grown by UHV/CVD system

Type-II SiGe/Si MQWs (Multi-Quantum Wells) and Self-Organized Ge/Si Islands were successfully grown by a homemade ultra-high vacuum/chemical vapor deposition (UHV/CVD) system. Growth characteristics and PL (photoluminescence) spectra at different temperature were measured. It demonstrated that some accumulation of carriers in the islands results in the increase of the integrated PL intensity of island-related at a certain temperature range.

Heteroepitaxial growth and annealing of gamma-Al2O3 thin films on silicon

The gamma-Al2O3 films were grown on Si (100) substrates using the sources of TMA (Al (CH3)(3)) and O-2 by very low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (VLP-CVD). It has been found that the gamma-Al2O3 film has a mirror-like surface and the RMS was about 2.5nm. And the orientation relationship was gamma-Al2O3(100)/Si(100). The thickness uniformity of gamma-Al2O3 films for 2-inch epi-wafer was less than 5%. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED) results show that the crystalline quality of the film was improved after the film was annealed at 1000degreesC in O-2 atmosphere. The high-frequency C-V and leakage current of Al/gamma-Al2O3/Si capacitor were also measured to verify the annealing effect of the film. The results show that the dielectric constant increased from 4 to 7 and the breakdown voltage for 65-nm-thick gamma-Al2O3 film on silicon increases from 17V to 53V.

Study on optical band gap of boron-doped nc-Si : H film

The optical band gap (E-g) of the boron (B)-doped hydrogenated nano-crystalline silicon (nc-Si:H) films fabricated using plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) was investigated in this work. The transmittance of the films were measured by spectrophotometric and the E-g was evaluated utilizing three different relations for comparison, namely: alphahnu=C(hnu-E-g)(3), alphahnu=B-0(hnu-E-g)(2), alphahnu=C-0(hnu-E-g)(2). Result showed that E-g decreases with the increasing of Boron doping ratio, hydrogen concentration, and substrate's temperature (T-s), respectively. E-g raises up with rf power density (P-d) from 0.45W.cm(-2) to 0.60w.cm(-2) and then drops to the end. These can be explained for E-g decreases with disorder in the films.

Getting high-efficiency photoluminescence from Si nanocrystals in SiO2 matrix

Silicon nanocrystals in SiO2 matrix are fabricated by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition followed by thermal annealing. The structure and photoluminescence (PL) of the resulting films is investigated as a function of deposition temperature. Drastic improvement of PL efficiency up to 12% is achieved when the deposition temperature is reduced from 250 degreesC to room temperature. Low-temperature deposition is found to result in a high quality final structure of the films in which the silicon nanocrystals are nearly strain-free, and the Si/SiO2 interface sharp. The demonstration of the superior structural and optical properties of the films represents an important step towards the development of silicon-based light emitters. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.

Microstructure of a-SiOx : H

A set of a-SiOx:H (0.52 < x < 1.58) films are fabricated by plasma-enhanced-chemical-vapor-deposition (PECVD) method at the substrate temperature of 250degreesC. The microstructure and local bonding configurations of the films are investigated in detail using micro-Raman scattering, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). It is found that the films are structural inhomogeneous, with five phases of Si, Si2O:H, SiO:H, Si2O3:H and SiO2 that coexist. The phase of Si is composed of nonhydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si) clusters that are spatially isolated. The average size of the clusters decreases with the increasing oxygen concentration x in the films. The results indicate that the structure of the present films can be described by a multi-shell model, which suggests that a-Si cluster is surrounded in turn by the subshells Of Si2O:H, SiO:H, Si2O3:H, and SiO2.

In situ doping of 3C-SiC grown on (0001) sapphire substrates by LPCVD

The heteroepitaxial growth of n-type and p-type 3C-SiC on (0001) sapphire substrates has been performed with a supply of SiH4+C2H4+H-2 system by introducing ammonia (NH3) and diborane (B2H6) precursors, respectively, into gas mixtures. Intentionally incorporated nitrogen impurity levels were affected by changing the Si/C ratio within the growth reactor. As an acceptor, boron can be added uniformly into the growing 3C-SiC epilayers. Nitrogen-doped 3C-SiC epilayers were n-type conduction, and boron-doped epilayers were p-type and probably heavily compensated.