Possibility of reverse Monte Carlo modelling for hydrogenated amorphous Si deposited on reactive ion etched Si substrate

We examined the x-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns of hydrogenated amorphous Si (a-Si:H) and of crystalline Si (c-Si) substrate for high-Q measurements. A structural analysis of thin films on substrates is important for the development of real devices. A transmission geometry with high-energy x-rays was used for this investigation, together with very thin substrates, in an effort to reduce substrate signals. A small area of the substrate was etched using the reactive ion etching (RIE) plasma process to maintain free-standing structures, and a-Si was deposited using catalytic chemical vapour deposition techniques. The x-ray beam was focused on the processed area and a-Si diffraction using a thin Si layer was measured. Unlike a-Si:H films on substrates without etching, we succeeded in detecting amorphous signals from samples deposited on the processed substrate. Application of reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) modelling using these data and subtracting Si substrate peaks was investigated. Direct subtraction and MCGR program (Pusztai and McGreevy 1997 Physica B 234-236 357-8) normalization for the ratio estimation between c-Si and a-Si:H structure factors was employed. MCGR normalization was found to improve subtraction of the c-Si peaks and the first peak at r = 2.3 in the pair distribution function g(r) could be calculated