Segregation and Thermal Dissociation of Hydrogen at the (110)/(001) Silicon Grain Boundary

Abstract

In this article, segregation and thermal dissociation kinetics of hydrogen at a large-angle general grain boundary in crystalline silicon have been investigated using deuterium, a readily identifiable isotope that duplicates hydrogen chemistry. Segregation or trapping of introduced deuterium (hydrogen) was found to take place at the (110)/(001) Si grain boundary. The segregation coefficient (k) of deuterium (hydrogen) at the grain boundary was determined as k≈24±3 at 100°C. Thermal dissociation of deuterium (hydrogen) from the grain boundary obeyed first-order kinetics with an activation energy of ∼1.62 eV.