Electron-cyclotron-resonance plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition of epitaxial Si without substrate heating by ultraclean processing

Fukuda, Koichi; Murota, Junichi; Ono, S.; Mizutani, Takashi; Uetake, Hiroaki; Ohmi, Tadahiro

doi:10.1063/1.105855

Cited by 31 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…We have also found that a hydrogen plasma pre-treatment before film growth is not necessary to get epitaxial film growth. This is different from the results reported by [15][16][17]. Epitaxial growth was observed at temperatures as low as 470'C on silicon.…”

Section: Effects Of Thermal Annealingcontrasting

confidence: 83%

Low Temperature Growth of Crystalline Silicon Thin Films by ECR Plasma CVD

Wang

Reehal

1997

MRS Proc.

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Crystalline silicon films have been deposited on silicon and metal-coated coming 7095 glass substrates at temperatures of 280 -680'C by electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition (PACVD) using an ultrahigh vacuum chamber and SiH 4 as the feedstock. X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Rutherford backscattering (RBS) and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) have been used to characterize the films. At temperatures of -280 'C, the as-grown films are microcrystalline with crystalline fractions between 50-97%. From XRD patterns, randomly oriented crystalline silicon grains were clearly present in the films with the grain sizes estimated to be between 170 -370A. As the growth temperature is increased to 470'C, epitaxial growth on silicon is observed at growth rates of 240A/min without bias or hydrogen plasma treatment before film growth. N-type doping of the layers has been achieved using PH 3 as the doping gas and solar cells with ECR grown emitters fabricated on 15/Mm thick p-type epilayers on p+ substrates. INTRODUCTIONLow temperature crystalline silicon film growth is an area of increasing importance for thin film crystalline silicon solar cells [1,2]. Various techniques have been investigated for low temperature epitaxial silicon growth. These include molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) [3], low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) [4], ultrahigh vacuum CVD(UHV-CVD) [5], and low pressure UHV electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) CVD [6][7][8][9]. Growth depends on the vacuum environment [5], the cleanliness of the film/substrate interface, and optimization of the process parameters. In plasma processing for epitaxy, conditions of the plasma must be optimized to minimise film damage as thermal recovery of damage is less at lower growth temperatures [7]. ECR plasma CVD is considered to be promising for low temperature silicon epitaxy, since the operating pressure and the plasma potentials are lower and the plasma current and particle energy can be varied independently. Hence the chances of obtaining less damaged silicon layers at low temperatures are higher [10]. Growth of crystalline silicon films on noncrystalline substrates is a more stringent requirement but offers the promise of a low cost silicon solar cell technology.This paper reports on some preliminary work on the low temperature growth of crystalline silicon films using ECR plasma CVD for thin film crystalline silicon solar cells.

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Section: Effects Of Thermal Annealingcontrasting

confidence: 83%

Low Temperature Growth of Crystalline Silicon Thin Films by ECR Plasma CVD

Wang

Reehal

1997

MRS Proc.

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“…This can be possibly done by increasing the roughness of the substrate by etching so that the “critical” peak-to-valley height of the seeding layer can be earlier achieved. It is important to point out, that, owning to the widespread use of the plasma enhanced CVD technique in the synthesis of various materials featuring a close-packed structure45464748, the approach shown here is not only limited to the fabrication of 3C-SiC NSs arrays, but also applicable to other materials such as diamond45, Si46, ZnO47, and cubic BN48 etc. The 3C-SiC NSs obtained in the present study are of great scientific importance on their own.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When epitaxy meets plasma: a path to ordered nanosheets arrays

Zhuang

Zhang

Fuchs

et al. 2013

Sci Rep

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The possibility of a controlled assembly of 2-dimensional (2D) nanosheets (NSs) into ordered arrays or even more sophisticated structures offers tremendous opportunities in the context of fabrication of a variety of NSs based devices. Reports of such ordered NSs are rare and all conventional “top-down” methods typically led to coarse structures exhibiting only limited surface quality. In this work, we demonstrate a path to directly synthesis ordered NSs arrays in a plasma activated chemical vapor deposition technique utilizing planar defects formed during hetero-epitaxial growth of crystals featuring a close-packed lattice. As an example, the synthesis of 3C-SiC NSs arrays with well-defined orientation on (001) and (111) Si substrates is shown. A detailed analysis identifies planar defects and the plasma environment as key factors determining the resulting 2D NSs arrays. Consequently, a “planar defects induced selective growth” effect is proposed to elucidate the corresponding growth mechanism.

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“…Epitaxial growth of relaxed Ge buffer and strained Si was performed using an ultraclean ECR Ar plasma enhanced CVD system without substrate heating [4][5][6][7]. The system is shown schematically in figure 1.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, in our previous work, it has been clarified that plasma process is a very effective method for lowering deposition temperature, e.g. Si epitaxial growth on Si(1 0 0) [4,5], Ge epitaxial growth on Si(1 0 0) with a flat surface [6,7] and thermal stability of strained Ge [7] using ECR plasma CVD without substrate heating. Especially, we obtained a thinner Ge film with almost a strain-free and flat surface on Si(1 0 0) [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Symposium on Magnetism in Honor of Professor W. E. Henry

Chubukov¹

1990

Sov. Phys. Usp.

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By using electron-cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasma chemical vapour deposition (CVD), epitaxial growth of highly strained Si on 84%-relaxed Ge/Si(1 0 0) without substrate heating has been investigated. For a Si thickness of 1.7 nm, the deposited surface is atomically flat, and the strain (ratio of change in the lattice constant to strain-free lattice constant) is about 4%. This value indicates that the strained Si lattice is matched to the relaxed Ge lattice. Furthermore, it is found that the heterostructure of strained Si/Ge is thermally stable up to 600 • C.

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Electron-cyclotron-resonance plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition of epitaxial Si without substrate heating by ultraclean processing

Cited by 31 publications

References 10 publications

Low Temperature Growth of Crystalline Silicon Thin Films by ECR Plasma CVD

Low Temperature Growth of Crystalline Silicon Thin Films by ECR Plasma CVD

When epitaxy meets plasma: a path to ordered nanosheets arrays

Symposium on Magnetism in Honor of Professor W. E. Henry

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