Growth of high quality microcrystalline silicon by layer-by-layer deposition technique

Abstract We have studied the growth of microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si) films with SiH 4 or SiH 4 /SiF 4 by the layer-by-layer deposition technique, here the deposition and hydrogen radical exposure (HRE) are done alternatively. With increasing the HRE time, the crystalline volume fraction increases and the hydrogen content decreases. A mechanism for enhancement of crystallinity by the HRE treatment is proposed.