14 research outputs found
Temperature dependence of the surface roughness evolution during hydrogenated amorphous silicon film growth
Temperature dependence of the surface roughness evolution during hydrogenated amorphous silicon film growth
The scaling behavior of the surface morphology of hydrogenated amorphous silicon deposited from a SiH3 dominated plasma has been studied using atomic force microscopy and in situ ellipsometry. The observed substrate temperature dependence of growth exponent reflects a crossover behavior from random deposition at 100 °C to a surface diffusion controlled smoothening around 250 °C to full surface relaxation around 500 °C. This crossover behavior has been reproduced by Monte Carlo simulations assuming a site dependent surface diffusion process, revealing an activation energy of ~1.0 eV for the ruling surface smoothening mechanism. The implications for a-Si:H growth are discussed