Disorder-induced nucleation in the nanocrystalline silicon film growth from chlorinated materials by rf plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition

Abstract We demonstrate the disorder-induced phase transition from amorphous to nanocrystalline Si by rf plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition of SiH 2 Cl 2 and SiCl 4 systems at low temperatures of 90–140 °C. There exists a threshold substrate temperature T th for the phase transition from amorphous to nanocrystalline silicon, which decreases from 110 °C to 70 °C with increasing H 2 flow rate in the SiH 2 Cl 2 system. On the other hand, T th is almost independent of the H 2 flow rate in SiCl 4 system along with a higher disorder in the a-Si network than in the SiH 2 Cl 2 system. The degree of the chlorine termination in SiCl x ( x =1,2) at the growing top surface highly related to that of the disorder of Si-network. The disorder-induced phase transition to nanocrystalline silicon is demonstrated from the film deposition studies from SiH 2 Cl 2 and SiCl 4 .