The study of amorphous incubation layers during the growth of microcrystalline silicon films under different deposition conditions

The structural un-uniformity of μc-Si:H films prepared using a very high frequency plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition method has been investigated by Raman spectroscopy, spectroscopic ellipsometer and atomic force microscopy. It was found that the formation of amorphous incubation layer was caused by the back diffusion of SiH₄ and the amorphous induction of glass surface during the initial ignition process, and growth of the incubation layer can be suppressed and uniform μc-Si:H phase is generated by the application of delayed initial SiH₄ density and silane profiling methods.