Phan A-V, Kaplan T., Gray L.J., Barvosa-Carter W., Aziz M.J.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, US
Keywords: boundary contour method, growth instability, ion implantation, level set methods, stressed boron doped silicon
The effects of rate-enhancing dopants and externally applied stress on interfacial growth during silicon crystallization are modeled using advanced numerical methods. The boron doped crystalline Si is modeled as an isotropic linear elastic solid, and the amorphous as a viscous fluid with a time dependent viscosity to reflect structural relaxation. The effect of the dopant is included through its position dependent effect on the rate of crystallization at the interface. Appropriate coupling conditions across the boundary are defined, and both problems are solved using advanced boundary integral methods. The interface is advanced in time using the level set technique. The simulation results match well with experiments and support the fact that both stress and dopant-gradient effects, along with interface orientation effects, must be accounted for to explain the observed behavior. These new effects are of general relevance to the growth of all non-hydrostatically stressed solids, and are therefore important in film synthesis, with potentially significant applications in electronic devices and thin film coatings.
Journal: TechConnect Briefs
Volume: 1, Technical Proceedings of the 2002 International Conference on Modeling and Simulation of Microsystems
Published: April 22, 2002
Pages: 334 - 337
Industry sector: Sensors, MEMS, Electronics
Topic: MEMS & NEMS Devices, Modeling & Applications
ISBN: 0-9708275-7-1