Abstract: N/I silicon thin films were deposited on amorphous silicon thin film coated quartz substrate by radio frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition(RF-PECVD)system at low temperature, and subsequently annealed by two-step rapid thermal processing (RTP). Through Raman scattering, X-Ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope(SEM) and transmittance electron microscope (TEM) measurement, the crystallization and morphologies of the sample were investigated. The results show that the crystallinity of the N/I silicon thin films reaches about 94% after being annealed. The cross sectional morphology of the N/I silicon thin films is of columnar grains and the average grain size of the sample is about 30nm while the biggest grain cluster is about 1.5μm in landscape orientation.

Key words: rapid thermal annealing, columnar grain, poly-Si thin film, poly-Si thin film solar cells