Lower-temperature growth of hydrogenated amorphous silicon films from inductively coupled silane plasma

A high-density (10(11) cm(-3)) inductively coupled plasma at low pressure (0.1 Pa) of SiH4 enables the growth of hydrogenated amorphous silicon films of high photoconductivity (10(-5) S/cm) at substrate temperatures (<100 degrees C) considerably lower than that with a conventional capacitive rf plasma. Such low-pressure high-power discharges were achieved by inserting a loop antenna into a plasma with magnetic multipole confinement. Thus, this type of rf reactor appears to be promising to realize high-speed deposition of large-area a-Si:H films at room temperature.