Influences of Nd doping on preparing Mg2Si semiconductor thin films by thermal evaporation

In this work, the thermal evaporation method was adopted to prepare Nd-doped Mg2Si semiconductor thin films on n-Si(111) substrate. The structure, morphology and optical properties of these Mg2Si thin films doped with Nd were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and Raman spectroscopy (RAMAN). The XRD results showed that Nd dopant led to weakened Mg2Si diffraction peaks and bigger lattice constants. The scanning electron microscopy results indicated decreased size of Mg2Si grains and clusters formed by the grains because of Nd dopant. The RAMAN results showed that the intensity of the characteristic peaks near 256 and 690 cm−1 decreased due to the influence of Nd doping.