Two-step annealing of hot wire chemical vapor deposited a-Si:H films

Abstract

A two-step annealing process was used to investigate the effect of dehydrogenation on crystallization and grain growth of low and high hydrogen content hot wire chemical vapor deposited (HWCVD) a-Si:H films. A low temperature pre-annealing followed by a rapid thermal annealing step at 600 °C was carried out. For the high hydrogen content film XRD (111) peak narrowed quite a bit, while opposite effect was observed for the low hydrogen content film. According to the grain sizes as calculated from TEM images, grain sizes of both of the two-step annealed high and low hydrogen content films are smaller than that of the single stage annealed film.