A systematic study was made of small-angle X-ray scattering and Raman spectroscopy in H-implanted amorphous material and in device-quality plasma-grown amorphous hydrogenated material. Both sample-types had a H concentration of 11at%. It was found that annealing caused the formation and growth of nanoscale H complexes in both materials. However, the volume content of the H nanoclusters was strongly influenced by the disorder in the original structure and remained smaller, by a factor of 3, in the amorphous hydrogenated material as compared with the H-implanted samples. The qualitative resemblances and quantitative differences in the structural evolution of H-implanted amorphous material and amorphous hydrogenated material were explained in terms of H solubility and defect structures.

Nanoclustering of hydrogen in ion-implanted and plasma-grown amorphous silicon S.Acco, D.L.Williamson, W.G.J.H.M.Van Sark, W.C.Sinke, W.F.Van der Weg, A.Polman, S.Roorda: Physical Review B, 1998, 58[19], 12853-64