Spatio-temporal pattern formation during the anodic electrodissolution of silicon in ammonium fluoride solution [Elektronische Ressource] / Iljana Miethe

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• Physik

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• Publié par: technische_universitat_munchen
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 10
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 56 Mo

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Technische Universität München
Technische Universität München
Teiversität München
Technische Universität München
Physik Department
E19a Interfaces and Nonlinear Dynamics
TechniscnnFakultät für Physik
FakuüLehrstuhl Interfaces and Nonlinear DynamicsSpatio-temporal pattern formation during the
anodic electrodissolution of silicon in ammonium fluoride solutionSpatio-temporal pattern formation
during the anodic electrodissolution of Iljana Miethe
Iljana Miethe
Vollst andiger Abdruck der von der Fakult at fur Physik der Technischen Universit at Munc hen
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines
Doktors der Naturwissenschaften (Dr. rer. nat.)
genehmigten Dissertation.
Vorsitzender: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Roland Netz
Prufer der Dissertation:
1. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Katharina Krischer
2. apl. Prof. Dr. Martin S. Brandt
Die Dissertation wurde am 25.02.2010 bei der Technischen Universit at Munc hen eingereicht
und durch die Fakult at fur Physik am 22.04.2010 angenommen.Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 Anodic Electrodissolution of Silicon 5
2.1 Potential Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 Chemical and Electrochemical Reactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3 Experimental Setup 15
3.1 Electrochemical Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.2 Optical Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.3 Chemical Pretreatment and Experimental Preparations . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.4 Data Acquisition and Online Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4 Correlations between Current Density and Ellipso-microscopic Signal 29
4.1 Voltage Characteristics of Current Density and Signal . . 29
4.2 The Domain of Dry Oxide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.3 Etch Back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.4 Analytic Relationship between Ellipso-microscopic Signal and Current Density 35
4.5 Discussion and Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5 Spatially Averaged Dynamics on p-type silicon 47
5.1 Parameter Dependency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.2 Oscillation Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
5.3 Summary and Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
6 Spatially Averaged Dynamics on n-type silicon 71
6.1 Impact of Illumination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
6.2 Stirring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
6.3 Discussion and Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
7 Spatial Pattern Formation 87
7.1 Temporal Dynamics and Spatial Pattern Formation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
iiiiv
7.2 Immobile, Labyrinthine Cluster Pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
7.3 Moving Clusters and Coexistence of Oscillations with Di erent Frequencies . 107
7.4 Discussion and Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
8 Summary 115
A Overview of Experiments 119
B Glossary 123
References 129Chapter 1
Introduction
Electrochemistry is a useful tool for the treatment of metal and semiconductor surfaces. The
anodic electrodissolution of silicon not only allows for smoothing of the surface via elec-
tropolishing but also for the tailoring of speci c optical and physical surface properties. For
example, Rauscher et al. (1995) showed that by exploiting nonlinear instabilities smooth sili-
con surfaces can be prepared with a density of states much lower than when prepared by other
methods. Lewerenz et al. (2009) produced thin lm photovoltaic cells by combining a dy-
namic instability of the electrodissolution of silicon with chemical etching and electrochemical
metal deposition.
The plethora of applications of the anodic electrodissolution of silicon has spurred many
studies of the kinetics of the anodic oxidation of silicon with various electrochemical methods
and techniques from surface science. Hence, a large body of fundamental studies exists. Yet,
as stressed by Zhang (2001) in a monograph on the electrochemistry of silicon, \many details
of the phenomena observed in the complex system of [the] siliconjelectrolyte interface are still
not understood".
In a typical electrodissolution experiment, a silicon wafer is immersed in a uoride containing
electrolyte and an anodic bias is applied. The positive potential of the silicon electrode leads
to the electrochemical oxidation of the electrode. Simultaneously, the uoride species from the
electrolyte etch the silicon oxide formed electrochemically. Since holes at the silicon surface
are necessary for the electrooxidation, an appreciable current density is only obtained with
p-type silicon samples. In the case of n-type silicon it is necessary to illuminate the sample.
With both types of silicon, current density oscillations are observed when a su ciently high
voltage is applied.
Although the current oscillations were already discovered more than fty years ago (Turner,
1958), fundamental questions remained unsolved. The rst one concerns the physical mech-
anism causing the oscillatory instability, the second one relates to the possibility that the
temporal oscillations are accompanied by spatial pattern formation. Closely related to the
second question is the origin of the synchronization across the spatially extended system,
which results to observable macroscopic oscillations of the current density.
As for the physical mechanism, there are several suggestions in literature: (i) Lewerenz and
Aggour (1993) ascribe the oscillations to stress that results from the di erence in molecular
volume between silicon and its anodic oxide. The stress induces cracks in the oxide that are
responsible for the current ow and at which etching occurs preferentially. Oxidation stops
when the oxide layer at bottom of the defect lines reaches a critical, so-called passivating
thickness. In contrast, (ii) Lehmann (1996) related the current density oscillations to mor-
phology changes of the silicon oxide with the oxide thickness and postulated that two oxide
12 1. Introduction
morphologies are etched at di erent rates. (iii) In the so-called current burst model by F oll
et al. (2006), eld-dependent ionic breakthrough events were postulated. The breakthrough
occurs at higher values of the electric eld than the closure of the resulting pore, which in-
troduces hysteresis in the system that causes the oscillatory instability. Only the latter of
these three approach was cast in a mathematical model. The microscopic reaction steps were
simulated with a Monte Carlo ansatz limiting the modeling to electrode areas of 100 times
2100 nm (Foca et al., 2007).
Thus, the existing models do not give an unambiguous picture of the oscillation mechanism.
Gerischer and Lubk e (1988) stated two decades ago that \the appearance of oscillations
[...] can only be caused by nonlinear correlations between formation and dissolution of the
oxide". Yet, a macroscopic model that can consolidate the existing microscopic approaches
and is su cient to explain the oscillations is still missing. Furthermore, up to the present
the identi cation of bifurcations is missing. The determination of activator and inhibitor has
yet to be accomplished. The synchronization of the local oscillators is a spatial phenomenon,
therefore its analysis calls for a thorough investigation of possible pattern formation.
Spatially extended oscillatory systems are known to exhibit mesoscopic pattern formation as
well investigated in the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction (Zhabotinsky, 1991) or the heteroge-
neously catalyzed oxidation of carbon monoxide on platinum (Ertl, 1991). Pattern formation
during oscillatory electrochemical reactions has been investigated on metal working electrodes
(e.g. Krischer, 2003), but not on semiconductor electrodes.
Up to the start of the present investigations the possible spatio-temporal pattern formation
at the electri ed silicon joxidejelectrolyte interface was essentially unexplored. Space averag-
ing methods probing the oxide layer thickness have been used to investigate the temporal
dynamics. The spatial patterning of the oxide layer was also investigated, but mostly with
ex situ methods that lack a resolution of the temporal dynamics.
All theoretical considerations assume local, i.e. microscopic, oscillating domains and try to
link macroscopic oscillations to the synchronization of these small domains. In this picture,
damped oscillations, which are often observed when the potential is stepped from open-circuit
potential to several volts, result from a synchronization of micro-oscillators due to the voltage
step and subsequent desynchronization due to small local di erences of the surface properties
(e.g. Chazalviel and Ozanam, 1992; Grzanna et al., 2000a,b). In the case of the current burst
model, synchronization is ascribed to the concerted oxide formation at neighboring sites,
which may be desynchronized by the reduction of the electric eld across the oxide layer in
the vicinity of an active pore (Carstensen et al., 1999).
It has never been discussed that the electric potential at the inter