The Effect Of Hydrogen Dilution On The Interatomic Bonding Of Amorphous Hydrogenated Silicon - Carbon

Abstract

The effect of hydrogen dilution of the precursor gas mixture on the local bonding environment in glow-discharge deposited a-Si:C:H has been studied by neutron diffraction and inelastic neutron scattering. The neutron diffraction results show a large increase in the silicon-carbon bonding upon hydrogen dilution, at the expense of silicon-silicon bonding. The inelastic neutron scattering provides complementary information on the hydrogen bonding environment. The hydrogen is predominantly bonded in SiH and SiH2 groups, with a large increase in the SiH2 group concentration occurring upon hydrogen dilution. The data presented here show that SiH3 and CH(n) groups are present as a very small fraction of H bonding sites, if at all