Determination of hydrogen concentration in a-Si and a-Ge layers by elastic recoil detection analysis

In this work we have studied the individual a-Si and a-Ge hydrogenated layers prepared by RF sputtering on Si (100) substrates using Ar and H2 gas mixture. The absolute value of atomic content of the H was determined by Elastic Recoil Detection Analysis (ERDA) with 1.6 MeV 4He+ beam. The dynamics of the out diffusion was investigated by annealing in high purity (99.999%) argon atmosphere at 350 °C for several hours. It was clearly shown that hydrogen can diffuse out faster from Ge film than from the Si one during annealing of the samples. ► We have studied the a-Si and a-Ge hydrogenated layers prepared by RF sputtering. ► The dynamics of the hydrogen out diffusion of was investigated by annealing at 350 °C. ► It was shown that hydrogen can diffuse out faster from Ge film than from the Si one.