Observation of the nucleation kinetics of Si quantum dots On SiO2 by EFTEM

The formation of Si quantum dots on SiO2 by chemical vapour deposition of SiH4 is investigated in the range from the sub-monolayer to the complete coverage with Si. Energy filtered transmission electron microscopy is used to measure the dot size distributions. It is shown that this technique allows the measurement of size distributions down to dimensions of about Into. This capability allows the determination of some important microscopic features of the nucleation process, the consideration of which is fundamental to control the Si dot size.