Amorphous silicon (a-Si) photoreceptors have been fabricated by the conventional glow-discharge method without deteriorateng their electrophotographic properties at the deposition rate (
RD) of 3-17 μm/hr with increasing density of active species in SiH
4-Ar glow-discharge plasma under controlling decomposition efficiency of SiH
4 (η
SiH4) and secondary reactions of the active species with SiH
4 molecules. The decomposition efficiency of SiH
4(η
SiH4) has been measured by mass spectrometry, and the relations have experimentally been derived between η
SiH4, and deposition parameters such as electric power (
Rf) gas pressure (
P) , distance between
Rfelectrode and Al substrate (
l) and average residence-time (τ
r) of SiH
4-Ar gas in the glow-discharge volme (
V) . Furthermore, semiempirical formulas which relate
RD with η
SiH4, SiH
4 flow rate (
F SiH4), Ar flow rate (
FAr) and a ratio (
r/<>il) (
r: radius of a cylindrical substrate) have been derived from a consideration of diffusion process of active species produced by dissociation reactions of SiH
4 in the plasma, and successfully applied to a case of η
SiH4=0.63 in the range of 3 ≤ R
D ≤ 17 μm/hr, the formulas being
R
D=0.51·η
SiH4F
SiH4√[(1+2
r/
l)/{F
Rr+(1+0.83ηSiH4)FSiH4}]
at Rf= 1.15 × FSiH41.00 and Pl= 2.0 Torr·cm.
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