Silicon vacancy

Another view of the Si(lOO) etching mechanism has been proposed recently [28], Calculations have revealed that the most important step may actually be the escape of the bystander silicon atom, rather than SiBr2 desorption. In this way, the SiBr2 becomes trapped in a state that otherwise has a very short lifetime, pennitting many more desorption attempts. Prelimmary results suggest that indeed this vacancy-assisted desorption is the key step to etching Si(lOO) with Br2. 

Because of die rigidity and directionality of die covalent bonds die energies of self-diffusion have been found to be higher diaii diose of metals. In die case of silicon, it appears drat a furdier complication is drat an intersti-tialcy mechanism predominates above 1000°C. Below diis teiiiperamre, bodi elements appear to self-diffuse by atom-vacancy exchange as for die metals. 

In some materials, semiconductors in particular, interstitial atoms play a crucial role in diffusion. Thus, Frank and Turnbull (1956) proposed that copper atoms dissolved in germanium are present both substitutionally (together with vacancies) and interstitially, and that the vacancies and interstitial copper atoms diffuse independently. Such diffusion can be very rapid, and this was exploited in preparing the famous micrograph of Figure 3.14 in the preceding chapter. Similarly, it is now recognised that transition metal atoms dissolved in silicon diffuse by a very fast, predominantly interstitial, mechanism (Weber 1988). 

The first observations on the fluorescence of colloidal CdS were made using a colloid stabilized by colloidal silicon dioxide . The fluorescence spectrum consisted of a broad band with the maximum between 580 nm and 650 nm. The reproducibility of this red fluorescence was very poor. In the presence of excess Cd ions the intensity of the fluorescence was increased, which indicates that anion vacancies were centers of luminescence. Aging of the sol for a few weeks in the dark and in the absence of air was accompanied by an increase in fluorescence intensity by a factor of ten and a gradual red shift of the fluorescence band. However, even after this increase, the fluorescence quantum yield was still below 10 . ... 

Fig. 1. Ligand-field model for the electronic structure of substitutional hydrogen in silicon in terms of the interactions between the vacancy orbitals and the atomic-hydrogen orbitals [Although the a state is shown as being not entirely passivated (still below the bottom of the conduction-band edge), it could in fact be in the conduction band, but with a host-like state pushed down slightly into the band gap.] (Reprinted with permission from the American Physical Society, DeLeo, G.G., Fowler, W.B., Watkins, G.D. (1984). Phys. Rev. B 29, 1819.)...

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