I am trying to deposit a thin film of hydrogenated amorphous silicon by RF magnetron sputtering.
The material with a bandgap of 3.8 eV you might be referring to is Gallium Nitride (GaN). It's a wide bandgap material extensively used in blue and white light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and lasers.
Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H), on the other hand, has a bandgap of about 1.7 eV. This makes it useful in solar cells and thin film transistors for LCDs.
When depositing a thin film of hydrogenated amorphous silicon by RF magnetron sputtering, you'll sputter a silicon target in a plasma that contains a small amount of hydrogen. The hydrogen in the plasma will become incorporated into the growing film, which results in the amorphous structure and the unique properties of a-Si:H.
I hope this information is helpful. If you have other questions, please let me know!
Dr. Joshua Depiver, Thank you.
I have a thin film ... supposed to be a-Si:H but when I'm measuring the BG I am getting 3.8 so I'm a little confused about what exactly is getting deposited as there is no chance of GaN.
Have you checked for oxygen contamination? Silicon oxides have quite large band gaps. In your case that would definitely be non-stoichiometric, so it wouldn't exactly match the gap of any of the crystalline phases.
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