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The effect of substrate temperature and interface oxide layer on aluminum induced crystallization of sputtered amorphous silicon

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The effect of substrate temperature and interface oxide layer on aluminum induced crystallization (AIC) of amorphous silicon (a-Si) is investigated. The effect of substrate temperature on the AIC process was studied by changing the deposition temperate of a-Si from 200 to 300°C in a Al/a-Si/glass configuration. To study the effect of interface oxide on AIC, samples with a-Si/Al/glass, a-Si/Al-oxide/Al/glass, and Al/Si-oxide/a-Si/glass configurations were prepared at a fixed substrate temperature. The samples were annealed in the temperature range from 300°C to 525°C for different periods of time. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns confirmed the crystallization of the a-Si films in the various configurations. From the analysis, we report that crystallization of a-Si happen at 350°C annealing temperature in the Al/a-Si/glass configuration. However, with or without the presence of Si-oxide at the interface, crystallization saturated after annealing for 20 minutes at 400°C. On the other hand, when Al-oxide is present at the interface, higher annealing temperatures and longer annealing times are required to saturate the crystallization of a-Si. Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope (ESEM) and Energy Dispersive X-Ray (EDX) mapping were used to study the surface morphology as well as the layer sequence after crystallization. This analysis revealed that Si-Al layer-exchange happens regardless of the deposited film configuration.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by a grant from Department of Energy/Arkansas EPSCoR program under Lab Partnership Program (Award No. DE-FG02-ER45965). The support of the Department of Electrical Engineering in partially supporting one graduate student is dully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering, Arkansas Advanced Photovoltaic Research Center, 3217 Bell Engineering Center, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas, 72701, USA

    Maruf Hossain, Husam Abu-Safe, Marwan Barghouti, Hameed Naseem & William D. Brown

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  1. Maruf Hossain
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  2. Husam Abu-Safe
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  3. Marwan Barghouti
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  4. Hameed Naseem
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  5. William D. Brown
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Hossain, M., Abu-Safe, H., Barghouti, M. et al. The effect of substrate temperature and interface oxide layer on aluminum induced crystallization of sputtered amorphous silicon. MRS Online Proceedings Library 808, 167–172 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1557/PROC-808-A4.22

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/PROC-808-A4.22

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