Raman spectroscopy of amorphous and microcrystalline silicon films deposited by low-pressure chemical vapor deposition

In this work we used Raman spectroscopy to investigate the structural characteristics of as-deposited amorphous and micro-crystalline silicon films. For amorphous silicon films, the order (or disorder) of the silicon network was quantified using properties of the Raman spectra that were related to key deposition conditions. We found that a strong relationship exists between the structural order of the silicon matrix and the deposition temperature and deposition rate. A quantitative model was proposed relating the intensity ratio of transverse optical phonon peak to longitudinal optical phonon peak to the surface diffusion length, a parameter that was calculated from available data. It was found that optimization of the as-deposited silicon microstructure is possible by selecting deposition conditions yielding peak–ratio values in the vicinity of 0.53. For as-deposited micro-crystalline silicon films, Raman spectroscopy was used to estimate the initial crystalline fraction of the film and monitor the crystallization process during annealing. These data were used to confirm the crystallization mechanism in mixed-phase silicon films and identify the effect of different process parameters on the crystallization time of the annealed films.