Photoluminescence of plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition amorphous silicon oxide with silicon nanocrystals grown at different fluence ratios and substrate temperatures

Near-infrared photoluminescent dynamics of thermally annealed Si-rich SiO_x films grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition at different substrate temperatures and N₂O/SiH⁴ fluence ratios are studied. The size of nanocrystallite Si (nc-Si) critically depends on the density of oxygen atoms in a Si-rich layer when the N₂O/SiH ⁴ ratio is smaller than 4; that is, it significantly increases at low N₂O/SiH₄ ratios. Deposition at a high N ₂O/SiH₄ ratio strongly reduces the density of nc-Si and degrades the luminescence at 700-800 nm since the density of oxygen atoms is sufficient in the reaction of nc-Si with silicon atoms and formation of a stoichiometric SiO₂ matrix. Under a high RF power condition, the increasing substrate temperature usually inhibits the precipitation of nc-Si since high-temperature growth facilitates stochiometric SiO₂ deposition. The disappearance of visible PL reveals the complete regrowth of a stoichiometric SiO₂ matrix around a nanocrystallite Si cluster after annealing. The results of the transient luminescent analysis of Si-rich SiO _x samples corroborate well with the observed values and reveal a lifetime of 43 μs under an optimized nc-Si precipitation condition of 1100°C annealing for 3 h.