Aligned silicon carbide nanocrystals at the SiO2/Si interface by C implantation into SiO2 matrices

Abstract

In this article, we report a specific feature for the distribution of silicon carbide nanocrystals formed by C implantation into SiO2 followed by thermal annealing. Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy shows that silicon carbide nanocrystals (islands) are buried in the Si wafer at the SiO2/Si interface in a rectangular array (∼40×10 nm in dimension) and with a spacing of ∼20 nm. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy examination shows that silicon carbide nanocrystals are epitaxial on the Si wafer and are absent in the SiO2 matrix. Photoluminescence peaked at 580 nm is observed for samples annealed at 1100 °C under 514 nm excitation, which is thought to arise from the embedded silicon carbide nanocrystals.

Deposition of nanocrystalline SiC films using helicon wave plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition

“…Compared to silicon, the higher band gap energy of SiC makes nanocrystalline SiC a better candidate for blue light emission. In recent years, many techniques, such as sputtering, pulsed laser deposition, ion implantation and plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition, have been used for fabricating nanocrystalline SiC films [6][7][8][9][10]. Among those techniques, plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) has become a main technique for semiconductor film deposition due to its excellent advantages such as being suitable for film deposition in large areas, low cost and high uniformity [11].…”