Infrared vibrational spectra of rf-sputtered hydrogenated amorphous silicon

Abstract

We report the vibrational absorption spectra between 200 and 4000 ${\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ of a series of amorphous sputtered ${\mathrm{Si}}_{1\ensuremath{-}x}{\mathrm{H}}_{x}$ alloys prepared under different conditions of substrate temperature, and hydrogen, oxygen, and argon partial pressures. The spectra show stretching and wagging vibrational modes of the Si-H bond, and bending modes attributable to Si-${\mathrm{H}}_{2}$ configurations. Multiple features in the stretching vibrational spectrum are interpreted in terms of two different configurations of a single H atom. The integrated stretching vibrational absorption is correlated with the H content estimated from experiments on gas evolution upon heating. Finally, it is shown that different preparation conditions can lead to the same total H content but different vibrational spectra.