High electron mobility in well ordered and lattice-strained hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Wenzhong Shen; Xindu Chen; Rui Zhang; Y L He; Hongsheng Chen
- Source
- Nanotechnology. 17:595-599
- Subject
- Electron mobility
Materials science
Phonon scattering
Condensed matter physics
Mechanical Engineering
Analytical chemistry
Nanocrystalline silicon
Bioengineering
General Chemistry
Condensed Matter::Materials Science
symbols.namesake
Effective mass (solid-state physics)
Mechanics of Materials
Ballistic conduction
symbols
General Materials Science
Crystalline silicon
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Thin film
Raman spectroscopy
- Language
- ISSN
- 1361-6528
0957-4484
We report on the realization of high electron mobility (over 103 cm2 V−1 s−1) in structure-ordered and lattice-strained hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si:H) due to the decrease of conduction effective mass and phonon scattering. The nc-Si:H thin films were grown on crystalline silicon substrates by plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition through the radio-frequency power to properly control the chemical reactions of H atoms with the Si–Si network. The electron mobility and concentration in the nc-Si:H have been extracted with the aid of magnetic-field-dependent Hall effect measurements. X-ray diffraction, Raman, and infrared transmission experiments have been employed to yield information about the lattice strain and structural order in the Si nanocrystals. The room-temperature experimental mobility has been well explained by a generalized Drude transport model unifying both the diffusive and ballistic transport mechanisms.