Origins of Growth Stresses in Amorphous Semiconductor Thin Films
- 28 August 2003
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters
- Vol. 91 (9), 096101
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.91.096101
Abstract
Stress evolution during deposition of amorphous Si and Ge thin films is remarkably similar to that observed for polycrystalline films. Amorphous semiconductors were used as model materials to study the origins of deposition stresses in continuous films, where suppression of both strain relaxation and epitaxial strain inheritance provides considerable simplification. Our data show that bulk compression is established by surface stress, while a subsequent return to tensile stress arises from elastic coalescence processes occurring on the kinetically roughened surface.Keywords
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