Preparation of amorphous silicon by sputtering in silane

Abstract

In the work reported here we have r.f. sputtered silicon in argon–silane mixtures using undoped, n-type and p-type targets. Doped films have been produced, but the doping efficiency is extremely low. It appears that the dopant atoms are able to satisfy their natural valencies and are therefore not electrically active. Infrared absorption spectroscopy has been used to establish the hydrogen bonding in the films and values for oscillator strengths of the various modes have been derived, No correlation has been found between the nature of the hydrogen bonding in the film and the electrical properties.