Polycrystalline silicon grain boundaries

Seager, C.H., and Ginley, D.S., (1982). Fundamental Studies of Grain Boundary Passivation in Polycrystalline Silicon with Application to Improved Photovoltaic Devices, Sandia Report, SAND82-1701, p. 19-21. 

Porous layers have also been formed in polycrystalline silicon [100]. The presence of the grain boundaries in the polysilicon gives rise to a unique morphology. Depletion of majority carriers from the grain boundaries inhibits pore growth in these regions, while voids are observed adjacent to the boundaries. Smaller pores are seen in the grain interiors. 

It is noted that the polishing of the polysilicon film will employ the well-known technology of polishing monocrystalline silicon substrates. This gives an opportunity to examine the effect of polycrystallinity and thus of grain boundaries and grain orientation in CMP of Si. Doped vs. undoped polysilicon will also shed... 

Inhomogeneous stress distributions that arise at the grain boundaries in polycrystalline silicon wafers were detected by fan-shaped dislocation clusters close to the grain boundaries. The dislocation clusters are formed during the solidification process and relieve stresses produced in the system. 

C. H. Seager and D. S. Ginley, Passivation of grain boundaries in polycrystalline silicon, Appl. Phys. Lett. 34(5), 337, 1979. 

Grain Boundary Segregation of Impurity in Polycrystalline Silicon... 

For the SoG-Si polycrystalline silicon, both the XGB and X are far less than unity. Furthermore, if the impurities follow Henry s law, e.g., (13.6), the effect of the excess Gibbs energy on the grain boundary segregation can be neglected. Equation (13.20) may, thus, be simplified to pcpc... 

Silicon. - Ab initio calculations gave vibrational wavenumbers for the silicon clusters Sin, where n = 12-20.369 Micro-Raman spectroscopy was used to characterise polycrystalline silicon thin films.370 A theoretical analysis has been carried out on the low-wavenumber Raman bands in nanosolid silicon samples.371 Raman spectroscopy was used to analyse defects in polycrystalline silicon films, e.g. a band at 2000 cm-1 due to vSiH of dangling bonds at grain boundaries.372... 

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