Microwave annealing enhances formation of silicon quantum dots in oxide matrix

In this work, an effective strategy for the controlled synthesis of Si-QDs embedded Si-rich silicon oxide/SiO2 (SRO/SiO2) multilayers using susceptor-assisted microwave annealing (MWA) is introduced. Both MWA and rapid thermal annealing (RTA) were compared to study the growth of Si-QDs embedded in SRO/SiO2 multilayers, and found that the temperature required for forming Si-QDs decreases by 200 A degrees C under MWA. SRO single-layer films were used for the investigation of growth mechanism during MWA. It is shown that MWA annealing could enhance the phase separation in SRO films and more Si-QDs precipitated in SRO film annealed by MWA than RTA one. These results demonstrate that the microwave electromagnetic field has unique influence on the generated Si-QDs, can be considered as an archetype of a non-thermal microwave effect.