2015/12/02 by N. E. B. Cowern, Cowern, N. E. B., Bartek Pawlak +4
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Ion-surface interactions and analysis #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Silicon and Solar Cell Technologies #Thin-Film Transistor Technologies #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1512.00800
arxiv created 2015/12/02 · openalex publication_date 2015/12/02 · arxiv updated 2015/12/03 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Solid-phase epitaxial crystallization of amorphous Si layers on a crystalline Si substrate during B-ion irradiation is investigated over the temperature range 293 - 573 K. Regrowth occurs at all measured temperatures, with activation energy 0.07 eV and prefactor 2.36 nm / 1014 B cm-2 The low activation energy suggests that free interstitial point defects are involved and the unusually large prefactor indicates that each interstitial crystallizes about 50 host Si atoms. We propose that interstitial annihilation at the a/c interface sets off a shock-like process that drives c-Si island nucleation and growth until terminated by misfit strain.