Solid phase epitaxial regrowth of amorphous silicon is not affected by structural relaxation

Abstract

A piece of amorphous silicon made by self-ion implantation was structurally relaxed by thermal annealing at 650°C; subsequently, half of the sample was re-implanted to bring it back to a non-relaxed state. The sample was next submitted to a series of low-temperature anneals (425–435°C) in order to induce solid phase epitaxial crystallization and the growth rate was measured on both halves of the sample. No difference was found within an uncertainty of ±3%, which would imply that the activation energy for solid phase epitaxial regrowth remains constant to within 2 meV under structural relaxation.