Effects of Annealing Time and Temperature on Hydrogen in Doped and Intrinsic Amorphous Silicon

ABSTRACTThe local environment and diffusion of hydrogen in hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) depend on both temperature and doping. Previous studies of hydrogen evolution indicate that the manner in which hydrogen diffuses and desorbs from the material depends on doping and may occur at relatively low temperatures over extended time frames. We have examined the microstructure of hydrogen in intrinsic, boron doped and phosphorous doped a-Si:H as a function of annealing temperature and annealing time using hydrogen NMR. Changes in both the H NMR spectrum and spin-lattice relaxation times occur. We find annealing time has only a small effect on these parameters, whereas the annealing temperature has a substantial effect. The bonded-H content drops and the molecular-H2 content is seen to decrease slightly as the samples are annealed to higher temperatures. However the bonded-H remains essentially constant for long time, low-temperature anneals, while the molecular-H2 content is also seen to diminish slightly. The changes are more profound for B-doped samples than for P-doped or intrinsic material, consistent with the conclusions of other studies.