New crystalline structure for nanometer‐sized Ge microcrystallites prepared by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition

Crystallized Ge films have been produced in a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition system by the decomposition of H2‐diluted GeH4 gas source while using the H2 plasma treatment. Structural analyses of the films using x‐ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy techniques revealed a new crystalline structure in the Ge microcrystallites with a diameter of about 5 nm, which is different from the normal diamond structure of crystalline Ge. This new nanometer crystalline structure has been explained to be a metastable nanometer‐sized atomic configuration formed in the film deposition process.