Site-controlled formation of single Si nanocrystals in a buried SiO₂ matrix using ion beam mixing

• Xiaomo Xu,
• Thomas Prüfer,
• Daniel Wolf,
• Hans-Jürgen Engelmann,
• Lothar Bischoff,
• René Hübner,
• Karl-Heinz Heinig,
• Wolfhard Möller,
• Stefan Facsko,
• Johannes von Borany and
• Gregor Hlawacek

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2883–2892, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.267

• + or Ne+ ion beam mixing of Si into a buried SiO2 layer followed by thermally activated phase separation. Binary collision approximation and kinetic Monte Carlo methods are conducted to gain atomistic insight into the influence of relevant experimental parameters on the Si NC formation process. Energy

• between the SiO2 layers and perpendicular to the incident Ne+ beam. Keywords: helium ion microscopy; ion beam mixing; Monte Carlo simulations; phase separation; single electron transistor; Introduction Silicon has been the main material in the semiconductor industry for almost all use cases with the

• of NCs can form near the Si/SiO2 interface after a post-annealing process [18]. Si NC layer formation via ion beam mixing, which is studied both theoretically and experimentally [19], has capacitated the manufacturing of Si NC-based non-volatile memory devices [20]. A possible route to fabricate a Si