Effect of fluorine on the lateral crystallization of amorphous silicon nanowires

Sun, Kai, Hakim, M.M.A., Gunn, R. and Ashburn, P. (2012) Effect of fluorine on the lateral crystallization of amorphous silicon nanowires. ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology, 1 (2), P94-P99. (doi:10.1149/2.023202jss).

Abstract

In this work, we investigate the effect of fluorine on the metal-induced lateral crystallization (MILC) of amorphous silicon nanowires. The MILC is characterized at temperatures in the range 550 to 450°C using Nomarski optical microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. It is shown that fluorine significantly increases the crystallization length at temperatures of 550 and 525°C and dramatically improves the uniformity of the crystallization length at temperatures between 550 and 500°C. A fluorine implant improves the standard deviation of the crystallization length from 39.7% to 5.8% at a temperature of 550°C, from 35.6% to 5.2% at 525°C and from 30.6% to 15.9% at 500°C. This improvement in the uniformity of the crystallization is explained by the suppression of random grain nucleation by the fluorine. A comparison is also made between MILC in α-Si nanowires and larger α-Si ribbons and sheets. The crystallization length is significantly longer in ribbons and sheets, but fluorine is again shown to give a significant improvement in the uniformity of the crystallization.

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