Preparation and characterization of poly-Si films on different topography substrates by AIC

Polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) thin-films were made on planar and textured glass substrates by aluminum-induced crystallization (AIC) of in situ amorphous silicon (a-Si) deposited by DC-magnetron. The poly-Si films were characterized by Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). A narrow and symmetrical Ranman peak at the wave number of about 521 cm^-1 was observed for all samples, indicating that the films were fully crystallized. XRD results show that the crystallites in the authors' AIC poly-Si films were preferably (111) oriented. The measurement of full width at half maximum (FWHW) of (111) XRD peaks showed that the quality of the films was affected by the a-Si deposition temperature and the surface morphology of the glass substrates. It is likely that an a-Si deposition temperature of 200°C seems to be ideal for the preparation of poly-Si films by AIC.