Theory of growth of amorphous semiconductors

A method of agglomeration of atomic units is developed to investigate some statistical features of the physical and chemical processes that take place when a disordered solid is formed from a gaseous phase. The model is based on the stochastic matrix method, which is ideal to deal with statistical atomic or molecular assemblies that are formed far from thermal equilibrium. The final structure of the film depends on the local probabilities of agglomeration that include diffusion and chemical bonding. The model is applied to the case of hydrogenated amorphous germanium films grown by rf-sputtering, and its predictions are compared with recent experimental data. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.