title: Absorption Amelioration of Amorphous Si Film by Introducing Metal Silicide Nanoparticles.
abstract: Amorphous Si (a-Si) films with metal silicide are expected to enhance the absorption ability of pure a-Si films. In this present study, NiSi (20 nm)/Si (40 nm) and AlSi (20 nm)/Si (40 nm) bilayer thin films are deposited through radio frequency (RF) sputtering at room temperature. The influence of the film's composition and the annealing temperature on the film's optical absorption is investigated. The results show that all the NiSi/Si films and AlSi/Si films possess higher absorption ability compared to a pure a-Si film (60 nm). After annealing from 400 to 600 °C under vacuum for 1 h, the Si layer remains amorphous in both NiSi/Si films and AlSi/Si films, while the NiSi layer crystallizes into NiSi2phase, whereas Al atoms diffuse through the whole film during the annealing process. Consequently, with increasing the annealing temperature, the optical absorption of NiSi/Si films increases, while that of AlSi/Si films obviously degrades.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Materials Science and Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266100, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Engineering and Center for Thin Film Technologies and Applications, Ming Chi University of Technology, Taipei, 243, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Hsuan-Chung
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Engineering and Center for Thin Film Technologies and Applications, Ming Chi University of Technology, Taipei, 243, Taiwan. chensc@mail.mcut.edu.tw.|Department of Electronic Engineering, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, 333, Taiwan. chensc@mail.mcut.edu.tw.
authors.forename: Sheng-Chi
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Engineering and Center for Thin Film Technologies and Applications, Ming Chi University of Technology, Taipei, 243, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Che-Wei
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Ma Lee
authors.affiliation: Institute of Materials Science and Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266100, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
keywords: Absorption ability; Amorphous silicon; Metal silicide; RF sputtering