Impurity and interfacial effects on the formation of amorphous Si from the melt

Amorphous Si has been formed from the melt by the UV laser heating of surface layers of single crystal (111) Si. The single crystals were doped with As, Bi, In, or Te to concentrations of approximately one part in 103. For the same quenching rates, the amorphous layers produced on the doped Si were substantially thicker than those on pure Si. Maximum amorphous thicknesses of 1200 Å were obtained. The amorphization phenomena are correlated with melt depths and interfacial segregation effects.