Deposition of a-Si:H using a supersonically expanding argon plasma

Amorphous Hydrogenated Silicon (a-Si:H) is a material that is widely used in the field of solar cells and other optoelectronics. The only method available to produce high quality a-Si:H is by means of plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). Radicals responsible for deposition diffuse from a glow discharge toward a substrate that is heated up to 600 K where a layer grows with a speed of typically 0.1 nm/s. The deposition rate is limited because of transport is diffusion determined. An increase of this deposition rate and material efficiency can be expected if the radicals are transported toward the substrate using another transport mechanism.