The hot-pressing technique which has been successfully used to manufacture twist boundaries in silicon has now been used to form tilt boundaries in this material. In the present study, weak-beam imaging, lattice-fringe imaging and electron diffraction techniques have been combined to identify different features of the interface structure. The weak-beam technique gives an overall picture of the geometry of the boundary and in particular allows steps in the plane of the boundary which are normal to the dislocation lines to be identified. It also allows pockets of amorphous SiO2 remaining in the interface to be recognized. The lattice-fringe imaging technique allows the boundary plane parallel to the dislocation to be identified. Finally the electron diffraction technique allows the periodic structure of the boundary to be evaluated over a large area - this is particularly valuable when the dislocations are closely spaced - and can also provide information on the structural width of the interface.
Growth-mode and interface structure of epitaxial ultrathin MgO/Ag(001) films
