We demonstrate an analytical method to optimize the stoichiometry and thickness of multilayer silicon oxide films in order to achieve the highest density of non-touching and closely spaced silicon nanocrystals after annealing. The probability of a nanocrystal nearest-neighbor distance within a limited range is calculated using the stoichiometry of the as-deposited film and the crystallinity of ...

We demonstrate piezoresistive transduction of mechanical motion from out-of-plane flexural micromechanical resonators made from stacked thin films. The resonators are fabricated from two highly doped polycrystalline silicon layers separated by an interlayer dielectric. We examine two interlayer materials: thermal silicon dioxide and stoichiometric silicon nitride. We show that via one-time diel...

The viscosity of thin films of liquid poly(dimethylsiloxane) have been studied on silicon and fluoropolymer-coated silicon by means of a perturbation technique applied using colloid probe atomic force microscopy. The liquid film supported by a silicon substrate exhibited a greater viscosity than the bulk liquid, due to the strong interaction between the molecules near to the liquid/solid interf...

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In this paper, we propose new physically based threshold voltage models for short channel Surrounding Gate Silicon Nanowire Transistor with two different geometries. The model explores the impact of various device parameters like silicon film thickness, film height, film width, gate oxide thickness, and drain bias on the threshold voltage behavior of a cylindrical surrounding gate and rectangul...

Commercial aluminium and stainless steel sheets were used as substrates for thin film silicon solar cell deposition. The influence of elemental contamination and disturbed film growth on solar cell performance and yield were studied. Diffusion during film growth was found to be more pronounced than thermally activated interdiffusion of existing films. Surface irregularities of the substrate are...

In this paper, a single-mask substrate transfer process for the fabrication of high-aspect-ratio (HAR) suspended structures is presented. The HAR silicon structures are fabricated using a deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) technique and then transferred to a glass wafer using silicon/thin film/glass anodic bonding and silicon thinning techniques. The HAR structures are released using self-aligned...

With quasi-periodic microstructures, great enhancement of infrared light absorption of Au film over a broad wavelength band (2.7~15.1 μm) was realized experimentally for the first time. The microstructured Au film was prepared by replica molding of the surface of femtosecond (fs) laser microstructured silicon (black silicon). This unique absorption characteristic is mainly ascribed to good impe...

Selective exposure of a hydrogenated amorphous silicon ~a-Si:H! film to a room-temperature hydrogen plasma using a patterned masking layer and a subsequent anneal at 600 °C, results in patterned polycrystalline and amorphous silicon regions. However, most of the hydrogen in the amorphous silicon is lost, leading to severe degradation in its properties. In this letter, we report the rehydrogenat...

Here we demonstrate progress on electrodeposition of photoactive silicon films from an environmentally friendly molten CaCl2 electrolyte, which is the first step of a new route to a practical low-cost silicon solar cell. We report electrodeposition of severalmicron thick silicon films on a graphite substrate in a bath of molten CaCl2 containing SiO2 nanoparticles. The best silicon deposits was ...