In-situ TEM observations of surface roughening and defect formation in lattice mismatched heteroepitaxial thin films

Book · Thu Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1998

OSTI ID:305526

Ozkan, C S ^[1]; Nix, W D; Gao, H ^[2]

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1. Univ. of California, San Diego, CA (United States). Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept.
2. Stanford Univ., CA (United States)

This paper focuses on in-situ transmission electron microscopy observations of surface roughening and defect formation in heteroepitaxial Si{sub 1{minus}x}Ge{sub x} thin films. Annealing experiments have been carried out in-situ in the microscope under a high vacuum environment. The authors comment on the sample preparation procedure for in-situ TEM experiments and explain the importance of having a sufficiently thick sample to have the stress state in the film unaltered. Experimental results of in-situ surface roughening are presented for subcritically and supercritically thick Si{sub 1{minus}x}Ge{sub x} films. They found that, in a vacuum environment, the kinetics of surface roughening and the resulting surface morphology are much different than in a hydrogen environment.

• OSTI ID: 305526
• Report Number(s): CONF-971201--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
GERMANIUM SILICIDES
LATTICE PARAMETERS
MICROSTRUCTURE
ROUGHNESS
THIN FILMS