The formation of highdensity uniform silicon nanocrystalson insulator substrate and their surface morphology*

Abstract

The method of pulsed laser induced nucleation combined with furnace annealing for crystal growth is successfully performed to fabricate uniform silicon nanocrys tals with high density from initial hydrogen amorphous silicon(aSi:H) ultra th in film, deposited by a plasmaenhanced chemical vapor deposition system. Ato mic force microscopy was employed to characterize the morphological modifications of samples. It is shown that the size of ncSi is increased as the laser fluence increased. Nano crystal silicon dots with lateral sizes of～10 nm in dia meter, size deviation less than 20% and with surface density about 10.11/cm2 are obtained. The growth mechanism of ncSi dots is also briefly discus sed.