Room temperature epitaxial growth of Ag on low-index Si surfaces by a partially ionized beam

Abstract

Carbon segregation to the lowindex surfaces of an Fe-10 at.% Si single crystal The room temperature growth of 1000-1500 b; Ag films on HF-dipped Si substrates is studied as a function of self-ion (Ag+ ) energy during deposition. In all cases the tilms contained a mixture of epitaxial grains and randomly oriented ( 111) grains. The orientations observed were Ag(lll)/Si(lll) with both type A (Ag(llO)//Si(llO)) and type B (Ag(llO)//Si(ll4)) twins; Ag( 1 lO)/Si( 110) with Ag(OOl)//Si(OOl);and Ag( lOO)/Si( 100) with Ag(O1 l)// Si(Ol1). All three constructions match three Si atomic rows with four Ag rows. As judged by the ratio of epitaxial to nonepitaxial grains, the strength of the epitaxy was seen to decrease in the order ( 111) > (110) > (100). Increasing the Ag+ ion energy during the deposition was generally seen to decrease this ratio. Annealing of the Ag/Si( 100) fihns induced preferential ( 100) grain. growth.' 466

Origin of Screen-Printed Metal Contact Losses in Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells

“…Therefore, it was difficult to grow a Ag film epitaxially on the Si surface. However, according to the domain matching epitaxy concept, − Ag can grow epitaxially on the Si surface due to the 3 Si -to-4 Ag lattice matching. ,− We also found that the Ag–Si interfacial structure was constructed by 3 Si -to-4 Ag matching on the atomic scale (the right side of Figure a), indicating the absence of recombination processes caused by defects, dislocations, or Si dangling bonds. The obtained results also demonstrated the presence of Pb atoms in the produced crystallites (Figure b,c and Figure S6), and relative contents of Ag and Pb elements were 97.54 and 2.46 wt %, respectively (Figure S7).…”

Growth of epitaxially oriented Ag nanoislands on air-oxidized Si(111)-(7×7) surfaces: Influence of short-range order on the substrate

“…The weak spots in the RHEED patterns are indeed very weak and can be associated with a very small number of Ag(100) islands as observed in ref. [36,38] for Ag growth on Si(111) surfaces.…”

“…7(d) we notice that the intensities of diffraction spots from each twin are comparable, indicating their comparable probability of existence in the Ag nanoislands. Almost comparable number of A-type 13 and B-type grain growth was also observed for Ag growth on Si(111) surfaces [36,38]. The epitaxial orientation of the Ag islands with the A-type structure is schematically shown in Fig.…”

Origin of Screen-printed Metal Contact Losses in Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells

“…Therefore, it was difficult to grow an Ag film epitaxially on the Si surface. However, according to the domain matching epitaxy concept [32][33][34] , Ag can grow epitaxially on the Si surface due to the 3Si-to-4Ag lattice matching 31,[34][35][36][37][38] . We also found that the Ag-Si interfacial structure was constructed by the 3Sito-4Ag matching on the atomic scale (the right side of Fig.…”