Crystallization of P Type Amorphous Silicon (a-Si: H) by AIC Method: Effect of Aluminum Thickness

• Published in: SILICON Vol. 12; no. 2; pp. 405 - 411
• Main Authors: Kezzoula, Faouzi, Kechouane, Mohamed, Mohammed-Brahim, Tayeb, Menari, Hamid
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.02.2020; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Aluminum; Amorphous silicon; Annealing furnaces; Chemical vapor deposition; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Crystallization; Electrical properties; Environmental Chemistry; Glass substrates; Hall effect; Inorganic Chemistry; Lasers; Materials Science; Metal films; Optical Devices; Optics; Original Paper; Photonics; Polymer Sciences; Raman spectroscopy; Thickness; Aluminum induced crystallization (AIC); PECVD; Raman spectroscopy; Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si: H)
• ISSN: 1876-990X; 1876-9918
• DOI: 10.1007/s12633-019-00129-1

In this work, we will study the crystallization of P type hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) by Aluminum Induced Crystallization technique (CIA) by varying the thickness of the aluminum films. We have deposited a 100 nm thickness of p-type a-Si:H layer on Corning glass substrates using PECVD technique. An aluminum layer with thickness ranging from 10 to 400 nm was thermally evaporated on the a-Si:H surface. The thermal annealing was performed in a conventional furnace at temperature of 550 °C for 4 h in flowing N 2 ambient. The study of the crystallization of the Al/a-Si:H/Glass structure according the aluminum thickness was carried out by using Raman spectroscopy, X-rays diffraction and Hall Effect measurements. Raman results reveal the presence of the peaks between 510 and 520 cm −1 , which are close to the peak of crystallized Si (about 521 cm −1 ) proving the crystallization of all samples. The XRD measurements show the presence of the characteristic peaks of the crystalline silicon, thus the a-Si: H (p) layer was effectively crystallized by the AIC method in a short time. Through Hall measurements we found an improvement in electrical properties and an increase in dopant concentration (+ 5.3 10 14 to + 2.9 10 17  cm 2 ).