Radiation-Induced Nucleation and Growth of CaSi2 Crystals, Both Directly during the Epitaxial CaF2 Growth and after the CaF2 Film Formation

Anatoly V Dvurechenskii; Aleksey V Kacyuba; Gennadiy N Kamaev; Vladimir A Volodin; Zhanna V Smagina

doi:10.3390/nano12091407

Radiation-Induced Nucleation and Growth of CaSi₂ Crystals, Both Directly during the Epitaxial CaF₂ Growth and after the CaF₂ Film Formation

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2022 Apr 20;12(9):1407. doi: 10.3390/nano12091407.

Authors

Anatoly V Dvurechenskii^{1

2}, Aleksey V Kacyuba¹, Gennadiy N Kamaev^{1

2}, Vladimir A Volodin^{1

2}, Zhanna V Smagina¹

Affiliations

¹ Rzhanov Institute of Semiconductor Physics, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, 630090 Novosibirsk, Russia.
² Physics Department, Novosibirsk State University, 630090 Novosibirsk, Russia.

Abstract

The radiation-induced phenomena of CaSi2 crystal growth were investigated, both directly during the epitaxial CaF2 growth on Si (111) and film irradiation with fast electrons on Si (111) after its formation, while maintaining the specified film thickness, substrate temperature and radiation dose. Irradiation in the process of the epitaxial CaF2 film growth leads to the formation of CaSi2 nanowhiskers with an average size of 5 µm oriented along the direction <110>. The electron irradiation of the formed film, under similar conditions, leads to the homogeneous nucleation of CaSi2 crystals and their proliferation as inclusions in the CaF2 film. It is shown that both approaches lead to the formation of CaSi2 crystals of the 3R polymorph in the irradiated region of a 10 nm thick CaF2 layer.

Keywords: calcium compounds; crystal structure; electron irradiation; molecular-beam epitaxy; nanostructures; semiconducting silicon.

Abstract

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