Preparation of B-Doped Micorcrystalline Silicon Thin Films by RF Magnetron Sputtering

Boron-doped microcrystalline silicon (muc-Si:H) with various film thicknesses were prepared by radio-frequency (15.56 MHz) magnetron sputtering, and their structure and electrical conductivity were investigated. Although a heavily-doped silicon wafer was used as a target, the conductivity of the resulting films was 10^-6 Scm ^-1, which is almost the same as that of undoped muc-Si:H thin film. The conductivity of films prepared with boron grains on the silicon wafer target was higher than 10⁰ Scm^-1 for film thickness above 50 nm. These findings indicate that setting boron grains on silicon wafer target makes it easy to prepare boron-doped muc-Si:H thin films with high conductivity