Formation of high conductive nano-crystalline silicon embedded in amorphous silicon-carbide films with large optical band gap

High conductive phosphorus-doped nano-crystalline Si embedded in Silicon-Carbide (SiC) host matrix (nc-Si:SiC) films were obtained by thermally annealing doped amorphous Si-rich SiC materials. It was found that the room conductivity is increased significantly accompanying with the increase of doping concentrations as well as the enhanced crystallizations. The conductivity can be as high as 630 S/cm for samples with the optical band gap around 2.7 eV, while the carrier mobility is about 17.9 cm2/ V·s. Temperature-dependent conductivity and mobility measurements were performed which suggested that the carrier transport process is strongly affected by both the grain boundaries and the doping concentrations.