The structural transformation of polycrystalline Si induced by high energy ball milling has been studied. The structure and property characteristics of the milled powder have been investigated by x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, high-resolution electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, Raman scattering, and infrared absorption spectroscopy. Two phase amorphous and nanocrystalline Si has been produced by ball milling of polycrystalline elemental Si. The nanocrystalline components contain some defects such as dislocations, twins, and stacking faults which are typical of defects existing in conventional coarse-grained polycrystalline materials. The volume fraction of amorphous Si is about 15% while the average size of nanocrystalline grains is about 8 nm. Amorphous elemental Si without combined oxygen can be obtained by ball milling. The distribution of amorphous Si and the size of nanocrystalline Si crystallites is not homogeneous in the milled powder. The amorphous Si formed is concentrated near the surface of milled particles while the grain size of nanocrystalline Si ranges from 3 to 20 nm. Structurally, the amorphous silicon component prepared by ball milling is similar to that obtained by ion implantation or chemical vapor deposition. The amorphous Si formed exhibits a crystallization temperature of about 660 °C at a heating rate of 40 K/min and crystallization activation energy of about 268 kJ/mol. Two possible amorphization mechanisms, i.e., pressure-induced amorphization and crystallite-refinement-induced amorphization, are proposed for the amorphization of Si induced by ball milling.

GaP films, epitaxially grown at a low temperature (LT) of ∼200 °C by gas source molecular beam epitaxy, were reported recently to have excess phosphorus. In this letter, we report on the quantitative determination of the excess phosphorus in the LT films, using various approaches. Analytical scanning transmission electron microscopy, double-crystal x-ray diffraction, and particle-induced x-ray emission showed that the LT GaP films incorporated excess phosphorus of ∼0.6–2 at. %. The amount of excess phosphorus estimated from Raman scattering measurements, using the LO-TO phonon frequency splitting data of the as-grown LT GaP and bulk GaP, was in general agreement with those obtained from other techniques.

This study addresses the correlation of the macroscopic and microscopic characteristics of synthetic diamond crystals produced by high pressure, high temperature conditions. Microscopic properties were characterized using Raman spectroscopy, birefringence, and photoluminescence (PL). Macroscopic properties characterized included inclusion content and crush force. Raman measurements detected measurable stress shifts in only two samples. The PL measurements indicated an increased presence of the H3 center in areas of high strain. The absence of the H3 center and the presence of the N-V PL center was correlated to lower average crush force. A hierarchy has been developed that relates microscopic properties to average crush force.

Growth of large area, single or almost single crystal diamond is of great importance to the electronics industry. In this work, single crystal diamonds were implanted with C+ ions, inducing a subsurface damage layer in the diamond lattice. Homoepitiaxial diamond films were then grown on the implanted crystals using a microwave plasma CVD reactor. Films grown on on-axis substrates were dominated by large numbers of hillocks, renucleation and penetration twins, while miscut substrates exhibited stepflow growth. The homoepitaxial layers were separated from the substrate by a water-based etch which selectively attacks the subsurface damage layer of the diamond lattice. The films were analyzed by Raman scattering, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), optical microscopy, photo- and cathodoluminescence, and x-ray diffraction. CVD growth on adjacent, oriented substrates formed a single, continuous diamond layer. The resulting homoepitaxial film quality, orientation, defect density and it's relationship to the underlying substrates were compared at various points on the surface, particularly the region which overgrew the gap between different substrates.

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