In Situ Annealing Observations of Silicon Cross-Sectional TEM Specimens
With conventional transmission electron microscopy (TEM), dynamic events are pieced together with micrographs from a multitude of specimens annealed at different temperatures over the range of interest. Real-time imaging of dynamic events in the microscope provides the ability to view the entire anneal temperature span with one specimen. As reported by Parker, cross-sectional TEM can be used to observe real-time kinetic phenomena in silicon. Fiore and Herring later reported a new technique for preparing cross-sectional specimens that are annealable to temperatures as high as 1300°C. Both of these recently developed techniques have been used to observe the amorphous-to-crystalline phase transformation and defect network formation in high-energy ion implanted silicon.Cross-sectional specimens were annealed in a Philips CM 12 transmission electron microscope equipped with a heating holder. The specimens were prepared from [111 ]-oriented silicon wafers implanted with 5.5 Mev Ga ions at a dose of lO15 cm-2. Using a ramp-up temperature from ∽30°C to 1000°C over a 5-minute period, the dynamic events were recorded on 3/4-inch video tape from a TEM TV system.