Thermal post-deposition treatment effects on nanocrystalline hydrogenated silicon prepared by PECVD under different hydrogen flow rates

In this paper, hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si:H) thin films were deposited on mono-crystalline silicon substrate by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) under different hydrogen flow rates followed by a thermal treatment in an infrared furnace at different temperature ranging from 300 to 900 °C. The investigated structural, morphological and optoelectronic properties of samples were found to be strongly dependent on the annealing temperature. Raman spectroscopy revealed that nc-Si:H films contain crystalline, amorphous and mixed structures as well. We find that post-deposition thermal treatment may lead to a tendency for structural improvement and a decrease of the disorder in the film network at moderate temperature under 500 °C. As for annealing at higher temperature up to 900 °C induces the recrystallization of the film which is correlated with the grain size and volume fraction in the layer. We demonstrate that high annealing temperature can lead to a decrease of silicon⿿hydrogen bonds corresponding to a reduction of the amorphous matrix in the layer promoting the formation of covalent Si⿿Si bonds. The effusion of the hydrogen from the grown film leads to increase its density and therefore induces a decrease in the thickness of the layer. For post-deposition thermal treatment in temperature range under 700 °C, the post-deposition anneal seems to be crucial for obtaining good passivation quality as expressed by a minority carrier lifetime of 17 μs, as it allows a significant reduction in defect states at the layer/substrate interface. While for a temperature higher than 900 °C, the lifetime reduction is obtained because of hydrogen effusion phenomenon, thus a tendency for crystallization in the grown film.