Structural origins of intrinsic stress in amorphous silicon thin films
Name
Johlin-2012-Structural origins of intrinsic stress in.pdf
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Author(s)
Johlin, Eric Carl
Castro-Galnares, Sebastián
Bertoni, Mariana I.
Grossman, Jeffrey C.
Buonassisi, Tonio
Tabet, Nouar
Abdallah, Amir
Asafa, Tesleem
Said, Syed
Date Issued
February 2012
Journal
Physical Review B
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Johlin, Eric et al. “Structural Origins of Intrinsic Stress in Amorphous Silicon Thin Films.” Physical Review B 85.7 (2012). ©2012 American Physical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) refers to a broad class of atomic configurations, sharing a lack of long-range order, but varying significantly in material properties, including optical constants, porosity, hydrogen content, and intrinsic stress. It has long been known that deposition conditions affect microstructure, but much work remains to uncover the correlation between these parameters and their influence on electrical, mechanical, and optical properties critical for high-performance a-Si:H photovoltaic devices. We synthesize and augment several previous models of deposition phenomena and ion bombardment, developing a refined model correlating plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition conditions (pressure and discharge power and frequency) to the development of intrinsic stress in thin films. As predicted by the model presented herein, we observe that film compressive stress varies nearly linearly with bombarding ion momentum and with a (−1/4) power dependence on deposition pressure, that tensile stress is proportional to a reduction in film porosity, and the net film intrinsic stress results from a balance between these two forces. We observe the hydrogen-bonding configuration to evolve with increasing ion momentum, shifting from a void-dominated configuration to a silicon-monohydride configuration. Through this enhanced understanding of the structure-property-process relation of a-Si:H films, improved tunability of optical, mechanical, structural, and electronic properties should be achievable.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.85.075202
