Paper PS-TuP20
Effect of Multi-polar Magnetic Field on Properties of Nano-crystalline Silicon Thin Film Deposited by Large-area Internal ICP-PECVD

Tuesday, October 16, 2007, 6:00 pm, Room 4C

Nano-crystalline silicon films have broadly been studied due to their applications to the thin-film-silicon solar cells and the TFT(Thin Film transistor) for the elimination of light induced degradation, the enhancement of long wave length response, and high electric mobility by comparison to amorphous silicon films. Especially, the deposition of nano-crystalline with a high deposition rate at the low temperature below 200°C is important. In other to realize the nano-crystalline silicon at a low temperature, a high density plasma such as inductively coupled plasma (ICP) is required. The conventional high density plasma sources have mainly been focused on the external ICP types, however, these sources show some problems in extending to a large area due to the very thick dielectric windows and standing wave effect. On the other hand, the use of an internal type antenna where the ICP antenna is inserted into the plasma gives more feasibility in depositing nano-crystalline silicon on the large area uniformly. And the application of multi-polar magnetic field is believed to improve the properties of the deposited film. In this study, as an internal type large-area plasma source, U-type internal linear ICP source using multi-polar magnetic field utilized to deposit nano-crystalline silicon on the glass substrate (370mm x 470mm) at the temperature below 200°C using H₂/SiH₄. ICP power of 13.56 MHz is in the rage of 100 W - 4000 W and the working pressure was varied from 10 to 60 mTorr. In this presentation, the variation of physical, chemical, and electrical properties of the nano-crystalline silicon deposited by the large area internal ICP with multi-polar magnetic field will be presented as compared to the source without multi-polar magnetic field.