Reactive particle beam based deposition process of nano-crystalline silicon thin film at low temperature for the flexible AM-OLED backplane

A novel deposition process for depositing nano-crystalline silicon (nc-Si) thin films at low temperature was developed using reactive particle beam assisted chemical vapor deposition (RPB-CVD) for applications to the thin film transistor (TFT) backplane of flexible active matrix-OLEDs with plastic substrates. During the formation of nc-Si thin films by the RPB-CVD process with a silicon reflector electrode at low temperatures or room temperature, energetic particles could induce the formation of a crystalline phase in polymorphous Si thin films without additional substrate heating. The effects of the incident RPB energy controlled by the reflector bias were confirmed by Raman spectroscopy. The dark conductivity of polymorphous Si thin films increased with increasing reflector bias, whereas the ratio of photo and dark conductivity decreased monotonically. The optical band gap of the Si thin films also could be changed from amorphous to nano-crystalline by controlling the reflector bias. The first results of a primitive nc-Si TFT by RPB-CVD at room temperature demonstrate the technical potential of RPB-based processes as flexible TFT backplanes.