Two-Step Liquid Phase Epitaxy Growth of Silicon on Patterned Silicon Substrates in Ar Atmosphere

This paper presents the results of the investigation on the liquid phase epitaxy growth of silicon thin films carried out in one-step and two-step modes. The new approach to the process of LPE growth has been applied, based on the fact that the saturation and growth occur in the separate steps under Ar atmosphere, i.e. the sample substrate is introduced into the tube after the saturation step and cooling the apparatus to the room temperature. The results show that ELO layers of the maximum value of the aspect ratio were obtained in case of the application of 0.5degC/min cooling rate and supercooling equal DeltaT=60degC in two-step mode of growth. The defect density of the ELO layers determined by Secco etching was smaller approximately by the factor of 10 than the defect density of the Si substrates used, reaching 1.95middot10⁴ cm^-2