The effect of thermal annealing on the properties of PECVD hydrogenated silicon nitride

Abstract

AbstractSilicon nitride (SiNx) thin films were grown on silicon by plasma‐enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) method at low temperature by varying the silane (SiH4) to nitrogen (N2) ratio in the plasma. As‐deposited samples were investigated by varying annealing temperature from 400 °C to 950 °C in infrared (IR) heated belt furnace, in order to study their properties and correlate them to the chemical composition of the layers to find the optimized condition for application in silicon solar cells (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)