Crystal Nucleation in Amorphous Si Films on Glass Substrate by Si+ Ion Implantation

Crystallization of amorphous Si films on a glass substrate using Si+ ion implantation is investigated. 100keV and 180keV Si+ ion implantations into 600nm-thick amorphous Si layers crystallize half and almost all of the film thicknesses, respectively. This result demonstrates that crystallization by ion implantation, which contains both crystal nucleation and grain growth, is due to ion-solid interaction, and not to “pure” thermal effect by ion beam heating. Furthermore, two distinct regions are observed in transmission electron microscopy investigation of grain size at different depths of crystallized Si/SiO2 multi-layer specimens. The deep region below the projected range is composed of grains smaller than in the shallow region. This result is strongly related with crystal nucleation and growth kinetics by ion implantation.