Annealing Effect on Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon Films Prepared at High Deposition-Rate by Substrate Impedance Tuning Technique

Abstract
The annealing-induced changes in the infrared absorption, optical absorption, electron spin resonance and photoluminescence of hydrogenated amorphous silicon deposited at a high deposition-rate of ∼4.5 nm/s were investigated. The photoluminescence intensity increased, while the band-tail absorption decreased greatly when the sample was annealed up to 400°C. The silicon-hydrogen bonding configuration varied with annealing in a completely different manner from that of low-rate (∼0.1 nm/s) films. The mode of atomic stacking in high-rate as-deposited films appears to deviate appreciably from that in low-rate ones.