Suppression of crystal nucleation in amorphous Si thin films by high energy ion irradiation at intermediate temperatures

In situ electron microscopy has been used to observe crystal nucleation and growth in amorphous Si films. Results demonstrate that a repeated intermediate temperature ion irradiation/thermal annealing cycle can lead to suppression of nucleation in amorphous regions without inhibition of crystal growth of existing large crystals. Fundamentally, the experimental results indicate that the population of small crystal clusters near the critical cluster size is affected by intermediate temperature ion irradiation. In this paper potential applications of the intermediate temperature irradiation/thermal anneal cycle to lateral solid epitaxy of Si and thin film device technology are discussed