Growth and Characterization of a-Si :H and a-SiC:H Thin Films Grown by RF-PECVD

Thin films of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si : H) and hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC:H) of different compositions were deposited on Si(100) wafer and glass by RF plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (RF-PECVD). In the present work, we have investigated the effects of the RF power on the properties, such as optical band gap, transmittance and crystallinity. The Raman data show that the a-Si:H material consists of an amorphous and crystalline phase for the co-presence of two peaks centered at 480 and $520 cm^{-1}$ . The UV-VIS data suggested that the optical energy band gap ($E_{g}$ ) is not changed effectively with RF power and the obtained $E_{g}$(1.80eV) of the $\mu$c-Si:H thin film has almost the same value of a-Si:H thin film (1.75eV), indicating that the crystallity of hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin film can mainly not affected to their optical properties. However, the experimental results have shown that$ E_{g}$ of the a-SiC:H thin films changed little on the annealing temperature while $E_{g}$ increased with the RF power. The Raman spectrum of the a-SiC:H thin films annealed at high temperatures showed that graphitization of carbon clusters and microcrystalline silicon occurs.