Effect of the hydrogen concentration on the growth mechanism of sputtered hydrogenated silicon thin films

The method of elastic recoil detection (ERD) has been utilized to analyze the actual hydrogen concentration in hydrogenated silicon thin films and has been demonstrated to provide more stable and accurate analysis for quantification of the hydrogen concentration than does Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy. In order to realize the quality of thin films, spectroscopic ellipsometry and the applied effective medium approximation (EMA) theory of the Maxwell-Garnett and Bruggeman models are applied to deducing the effective refractive index of the films. The relative void fractions corresponding to amorphous silicon films with lowest hydrogen flow could be obtained based on the EMA theory. Therefore, this study found an important linear relationship between the hydrogen concentration and structural relaxation as a consequence of the void fraction induced by the hydrogen flow.