MORPHOLOGICAL-STUDY OF KINETIC ROUGHENING ON AMORPHOUS AND MICROCRYSTALLINE SILICON SURFACE

An ex situ study of surface morphology of amorphous (a-Si:H) and micro crystalline silicon (mu c-Si:H) has been carried out to understand the ir growth mechanism using an atomic force microscope. For a-Si:H, a st andard Karder, Parisi and Zhang (KPZ) model well describes the kinetic s of the roughness evolution with increasing film thickness except at T-s similar to 360 degrees C, where a significant roughness enhancemen t is observed. The morphology of mu c-Si:H on Si(001) substrate shows a similar roughness formation at much lower temperatures of 150 to 200 degrees C. This roughness formation is found to be correlated with th e surface hydrogen coverage. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.