The influence of deposition parameters on the properties of amorphous silicon thin films produced by the magnetron sputtering method

The influence of various deposition parameters on the properties of amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin films produced by r.f. magnetron sputtering was studied. The following parameters were varied: the incident r.f. power, the argon pressure in the sputtering chamber and the substrate temperature. The films were characterized by studying the dark conductivity and optical absorption from which the values of the band gaps were obtained. The most interesting result was that a-Si films prepared at high argon pressures showed significant photoconductivity. The results show that the magnetron sputtering method has good potential for producing high quality a-Si films.