Detecting reactive species in hot wire chemical vapor deposition

Major recent advances: A variety of in situ diagnostic techniques have been applied recently to detect reactive species, including H, Si, SiH, SiH2, SiH3 and Si2H6, in hot wire chemical vapor deposition of hydrogenated silicon films. Several recent studies confirmed silicon radicals as a major silane decomposition product from the hot wire. The dependence of silicon production on filament temperature measured in the different studies appears to be similar; however, the reported apparent activation energies vary across research groups.