The influence of strain on dewetting of silicon films

The influence of strain on the thermally induced dewetting mechanism of silicon films is reported. This study shows that the initial strain level in the silicon film significantly affects the final size and shape of the silicon agglomerates resulting from the film dewetting. With the increase of the biaxial strain up to 1.6%, the size of the silicon agglomerates is significantly reduced while their density increases. Moreover, the shape of the agglomerates becomes elongated when the strain favors one of the in-plane crystallographic directions to minimize the total energy of the system. A quantitative analysis of the dewetting mechanism is presented in terms of the agglomerates size and density versus the strain level. Finally, phenomenological laws are extracted, which predict the size and shape of the agglomerates.