Model for the amorphous roughening transition in amorphous semiconductor deposition

Precursor Cat-CVD a-Si films for the formation of high-quality poly-Si films on glass substrates by flash lamp annealing

“…2 shows the root-mean-square (RMS) surface roughness of the Cat-CVD and PECVD a-Si films as a function of film thickness. The observed roughness is probably due to the so-called "amorphous-to-amorphous roughening transition", generally observed on surfaces of a-Si films deposited by Cat-and PECVD [12][13][14]. Although the estimated roughness is large compared to a previous report [15], this might be due to different deposition conditions.…”

Influence of microstructure and composition on hydrogenated silicon thin film properties for uncooled microbolometer applications

“…The R ¼ 500 film and all films prepared at lower R exhibit an amorphous roughening transition [a ! a], 10,[21][22][23][24][25] which is denoted by an increase in surface roughness after the initial coalescence of clusters on the substrate and subsequent smoothening, typically at bulk layer thicknesses 100 Å for films prepared under these conditions. The films remain amorphous both before and after the [a !…”

High hydrogen dilution and low substrate temperature cause columnar growth of hydrogenated amorphous silicon

“…Podraza et al 8 have used a simple continuum model 7 to describe the surface roughness evolution as the result of two competing mechanisms: a finite size atomic effect which causes preferential growth on the hills and less in the valleys 9, resulting in roughening, and a capillarity driven surface diffusion which causes smoothening 10. As a result, semi‐spherically capped clusters from the initial nucleation phase expand until they contact and start to smoothen out by surface diffusion of the precursors 2.…”