1993 Volume 32 Issue 3 Pages 242-252
Decomposition efficiencies η of SiH4 and the related gas M in SiH4-M-Ar glow-discharge plasma sustained by Ar carrier gas for fabrication of hydrogenated amorphous-silicon alloy (a-SiX:H) have been measured by mass spectrometry, where gas M is Si2H6, SiF4, GeH4, C3H8, C2H6, C2H4, C2H2, CH4, CF4, NH3, or CO2. Relative rate constant of dissociation reaction of gas M to SiH4, Kd,M/Kd,SiH4 determined from ηM and ηSiH4 enables to correlate with the lowest thermodynamic dissociation energy ΔH of the gas M by Kd,M ∝ exp(-ΔH/1.10). Relative in corporation probability into a-SiX:H alloy of relevant radical R for the gas M to SiHn (n = 0-3) radicals for SiH4,γR/γSiHn has been estimated using the film-compositions [X] and [Si] in the a-SiX:H alloy and decomposition efficiencies ηM and ηSiHn in the plasma, where a-SiX:H alloy is a-SiGe:H, a-SiN:H, a-SiC:H, or a-SiO:H. The variation in γR/γSiHn is at most three times, while that in Kd,M/Kd,SiH4is of two orders of magnitude.