INFLUENCE OF CURRENT DENSITY ON THE STRUCTURE OF AMORPHOUS SILICON SUBOXIDE THIN FILMS UNDER ELECTRON-BEAM ANNEALING

Abstract

Electron-beam annealing of an amorphous silicon suboxide thin film with a stoichiometric coefficient of 0.5 was carried out in a vacuum chamber. The exposure time was 10 min at an accelerating electron-beam voltage of 1000 V and a current strength of 75 mA. Using probe measurements and calculations, the current density distribution over the electron-beam cross section was obtained assuming a normal distribution. The current density on the beam axis was 0.8 mA/mm². The electron-beam annealing of the amorphous silicon suboxide thin film led to the formation of crystalline silicon nanoparticles with a size of \((4.1\pm 0.1)\) nm. The crystallite sizes did not depend on the electron-beam current density, in contrast to the degree of crystallinity, which decreased from 40% on the beam axis to zero (amorphous structure) on the periphery. It is suggested that during the formation of nanocrystalline silicon, a liquid phase is formed.