Numerical analysis of Excimer laser assisted processing of multi-layers for the tailored dehydrogenation of amorphous and nano-crystalline silicon films

Abstract The application of the striking electrical and optical properties of amorphous and nano-crystalline silicon in photovoltaic, photonic and nano-electronic devices is attracting increasing attention. In particular, its use both on polymeric substrates and in Integrated Circuit technology for the development of enhanced new devices has shown that processing techniques to produce amorphous hydrogenated and nano-crystalline silicon films avoiding high substrate temperatures are of great importance. A promising strategy to achieve this purpose is the combination of Hot-Wire Chemical Vapor Deposition at 150 °C with Excimer Laser Annealing, thus maintaining the substrate at relatively low temperature during the complete process. In this work we present a numerical analysis of Excimer Laser Annealing, performed at room temperature, of a multilayer structure of thin alternating a-Si:H and nc-Si films deposited on glass and grown by Hot-Wire Chemical Vapor Deposition. A set of two different layer thicknesses a-Si:H (25 nm)/nc-Si (100 nm) and a-Si:H (30 nm)/nc-Si (60 nm) were analysed for a total structure dimension of 900 nm. The aim is to determine the probable temperature profile to achieve controlled localized in depth dehydrogenation. Temperature distribution has been calculated inside the multilayer during the irradiation by a 193 nm Excimer laser, 20 ns pulse length, with energy densities ranging from 50 to 300 mJ/cm2. Calculations allowed us to estimate the dehydrogenation effect in the different layers as well as the structural modifications of the same layers as a function of the applied laser energy. The numerical results have been compared to the experimental ones obtained in similar multilayer structures that have been analysed through Raman spectroscopy and TOF-SIMS in depth profiling mode.