Thin Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon Carbide Layers with Embedded Ge Nanocrystals.

• Tác giả: Oleg Babčenko, Jaroslav Kupčík, Zdeněk Remeš, Jiří Stuchlík
• Ngôn ngữ: eng
• Ký hiệu phân loại: 271.094 *Third orders
• Thông tin xuất bản: Switzerland : Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) , 2025
• Bộ sưu tập: NCBI
• ID: 67356

Tóm tắt

The in situ combination of plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and vacuum evaporation in the same vacuum chamber allowed us to integrate germanium nanocrystals (Ge NCs) into hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC:H) thin films deposited from monomethyl silane diluted with hydrogen. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy were used for the microscopic characterization, while photothermal deflection spectroscopy (PDS) and near-infrared photoluminescence spectroscopy (NIR PL) were for optical characterization. The presence of Ge NCs embedded in the amorphous a-Si:C:H thin films was confirmed by TEM and EDX. The embedded Ge NCs increased optical absorption in the NIR spectral region. The quenching of a-SiC:H NIR PL due to the presence of Ge indicates that the diffusion length of free charge carriers in a-SiC:H is in the range of a few tens of nm, an order of magnitude less than in a-Si:H. The optical properties of a-SiC:H films were degraded after vacuum annealing at 550 °C.