Investigation of the formation of silicon nanocrystals by annealing of amorphous SiCx/c-Si structures

In this work, we study the changes in the optical properties of 300-nm-thick hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbide layers after an annealing process. Both intrinsic and phosphorus-doped amorphous silicon carbide layers (a-SiCx:H) were deposited on silicon wafers by plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) at 400 °C and annealed in a quartz furnace at 800 °C. The presence of randomly oriented silicon nanocrystals was confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements after the partial recrystallization process only in the doped layers. The presence or the absence of the nanocrystals clearly changes the Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra. From the fitting of the experimental curves with the model of Lorentz oscillators, the refractive index and the extinction coefficient of the different layers were obtained.