The characteristics of amorphous silicon carbide hydrogen alloy

Abstract
Various properties, including the chemical composition, optical gap, infrared and photoluminescence spectra, dark and photoconductivity, and activation energy of the intrinsic and doped amorphous silicon carbide hydrogen alloy prepared by radio‐frequency glow‐discharge decomposition of a silane‐methane mixture have been studied in detail. The gas‐phase composition of CH4, i.e., Xg=CH4/(CH4+SiH4), was varied from 0 to 0.8 and the B2H6 and PH3 mole fraction in the gas phase was varied from 0.09% to 2%. It is found that the carbon mole fraction in the film is smaller than 0.12 for Xg≤0.8 and the incorporation of carbon for Xg≤0.4 makes the film inhomogeneous, i.e., forming Si‐ and SiC‐rich regions. The observed variation of optical and electrical properties as a function of doping and carbon mole fraction are explained in a consistent way.