What is it about?
Self ion-implanted silicon is a model structure of elemental amorphous materials, whose atomic structures remain a mystery. Using statistical measurements of scattering from small regions, the Fluctuation Electron Microscopy technique can reveal ordering of atoms on length-scales invisible to conventional diffraction techniques (~1-2nm). In this paper the authors confirm the existence of small crystalline regions in amorphous silicon, and study their dependence on implantation conditions and annealing. The results are consistent with recent theoretical work showing that the paracrystalline structure, containing many small crystals embedded in a random network, is more stable than the continuous random network, which was long thought to have been the structure of amorphous semiconductors.
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Why is it important?
It is expected that crystalline topology affects the defects, both mechanical and electronic, and so could significantly influence the properties of these important materials.
Perspectives
We know so much about crystalline materials, since their structure is a regular motif that repeats in all directions. On the other hand amorphous materials are equally important, but harder to describe. They are not truly random, and the motifs that may occur are very difficult to detect but very important to understand, and improve, their useful properties.
Johm Gibson
FAMU-FSU College of Engineering
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Self-ion implantation and structural relaxation in amorphous silicon, Journal of Applied Physics, July 2025, American Institute of Physics,
DOI: 10.1063/5.0282943.
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