Determination of crystal orientation of silicon via shape-controlled vapor-solid growth of copper nanoparticles

Abstract

Crystal lattice orientations of substrates are inspected via morphology of copper particles generated by a vapor-solid growth process. The high thermal energy enables diffusion of copper ions into the crystal substrate, and then the copper ions on the substrate are preferentially gathered, forming single-crystalline metal particles. The shapes of the particles are bounded by the facets to minimize the surface energy. Thus, polyhedral particles are truncated and bounded by {100}, {110}, and {111} facets, which results in equilateral square and triangle shapes on (100) and (111) plane substrates, respectively. The directions of the sides of the square and triangle shapes indicate <100> and <110> directions, respectively.