Stress transition from compressive to tensile for silicon nanocrystals embedded in amorphous silica matrix

Silicon-rich silicon oxide films, with various Si concentrations, were deposited by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition and annealed at 1100°C in order to form silicon nanocrystals. For these films, it has been found that the absorption edge shifts as a function of the nanocrystal size due to the quantum confinement of exciton. This result showed that the size-related effects are present in the investigated films. Next, we examined the …