Abstract
We have studied silicon films grown epitaxially on silicon wafers using hot-wire chemical vapor deposition (HWCVD) with a tantalum filament. Silicon films were grown on (100)-oriented hydrogen terminated silicon wafers at temperatures from 175°C to 480°C, using a Ta filament 5 cm from the substrate to decompose pure SiH4 gas. The progression of epitaxy was monitored using real-time spectroscopic ellipsometry (RTSE). Analysis using RTSE, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and scanning electron microscopy shows that at a characteristic thickness, hepi all of the films break down into a-Si:H cones. Below 380°C, both hepi and the thickness of the transition to pure a-Si:H increase with increasing temperature. Above 380°C, hepi was not observed to increase further but TEM images show fewer defects in the epitaxial regions. Secondary ion-mass spectrometry shows that the oxygen concentration remains nearly constant during growth (<1018 cm−3). The hydrogen concentration is found to increase substantially with film thickness from 5•1018 to 5•1019 cm−3, likely due to the incorporation of hydrogen into the a-Si:H cones that grow after the breakdown of epitaxy.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Dean Levi, Dick Crandall, Qi Wang, and Paul Stradins for useful discussions. This work is supported by the U.S. DOE under Contract #DE-AC36 -99G010337.
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Teplin, C.W., Iwaniczko, E., Jones, K.M. et al. Silicon homoepitaxy using tantalum-filament hot-wire chemical vapor deposition. MRS Online Proceedings Library 862, 23 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1557/PROC-862-A2.3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/PROC-862-A2.3