Elucidation of microstructure of single-phase microcrystalline silicon based on crystallite size distributions

Highly crystallized undoped hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon films prepared using SiF4-H2 mixture plasma were investigated at various stages of growth employing different microstructural probes. Our self-consistent results elucidate various aspects of the evolution of film microstructure, compositional changes and variations in crystallite size distributions with film growth. Inclusion of a bimodal crystallite size distribution in microstructural data analysis leads to results that are corroborative with those obtained from other microstructural tools, and yields a more physically accurate and coherent description of microcrystalline silicon film microstructure.