Rearrangement of the optical properties of a-SiOx: H films after crystallization of silicon nanoclusters

Abstract

The results of investigations on crystallization of silicon nanoclusters in a-SiOx matrix have shown that, even at the very fast annealing using pulse photonic annealing (PPA) formation of rather large silicon crystallites (≥ 100 nm) occurs, as well as the arrays of Si nanocrystals with average sizes of ~10 nm and small sizes of ~1–2 nm happens. It is shown that with an increase in the concentration of nanoclusters in the initial film from 15 to 53%, the contribution of large crystals (larger than 100 nm) increases from 15% (at 15% ncl-Si) to 65% (at 53% ncl-Si), which says on an increase in the probability of coalescence of crystallites into substantially larger ones with an increase of ncl-Si content in the initial film, despite the high annealing speed.