Solid-state epitaxial growth of deposited Si films

Epitaxial growth by furnace annealing of amorphous Si layers deposited onto 〈100〉 Si substrates is demonstrated. Substrate cleaning prior to the evaporation includes only conventional chemical procedures without any attempt to achieve an atomically clean substrate layer interface. The crystalline quality of the grown layers near the surface is comparable to that of 〈100〉 Si regrown layers amorphized by Si implantation. Residual damage is usually found near the substrate-layer interface. The growth mechanism is believed to be vertical growth of isolated epitaxial columns which subsequently grow laterally to consume the remaining amorphous Si.