A novel fabrication method of polycrystalline silicon by indium-induced crystallization (InIC) of amorphous silicon suboxide thin films with a stoichiometric coefficient of 0.5 (a-SiO0.5) is proposed. It was shown that the use of indium in the annealing process of a SiO0.5 allowed to decrease the crystallization temperature to 600°С which was significantly lower than the solid-phase crystallization temperature of the material - 850°С. As a result of the high-vacuum InIC of a-SiO0.5, the formation of free-standing micron-sized crystalline silicon particles took place.

For the first time, polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) was obtained as a result of the gold-induced crystallization of amorphous silicon suboxide (a-SiOx). It is shown that, during annealing of a sample with a “substrate/gold thin film/a-SiO0.2 thin film” structure at 335 ℃, poly-Si is formed in a bottom layer (on the substrate), while gold diffuses into the upper layer. With an increase in the temperature to 370 ℃, the mechanism of poly-Si formation remains unchanged, however, only the rate of the crystallization process increases. Apparently, the process of poly-Si formation proceeds through the formation of gold silicides, which almost completely decompose into crystalline phases of gold and silicon at 370 ℃ for 10 h.