Ion beam induced epitaxy of deposited amorphous Si and Si-Ge films

Abstract
The epitaxial recrystallization of amorphous electron beam deposited silicon and silicon‐germanium layers on 〈100〉 silicon substrates was induced by a 2.5 MeV Ar beam irradiation in the temperature range of 200–400 °C. Even in films with bulk oxygen concentration of 0.5 at. %, layer‐by‐layer regrowth was observed with an order of magnitude reduction in growth rate when compared to clean, implanted amorphous silicon. Irradiation of codeposited Si‐Ge amorphous layers results in the layer‐by‐layer regrowth of a Si88Ge12 alloy. Ion beam assisted epitaxy of Si and Si‐Ge was found to be sensitive to interfacial cleanliness, but layer‐by‐layer regrowth was observed for samples that did not demonstrate regrowth under conventional furnace annealing.