Influence of current density on the structure of thin films of amorphous silicon suboxide during electron beam annealing

Electron beam annealing of a thin film of amorphous silicon suboxide with a stoichiometric coefficient of 0.5 was carried out in a vacuum chamber. The exposure time was 10 min at an accelerating electron beam voltage of 1000 V and a current strength of 75 mA. Using probe measurements and calculations, the transverse distribution of the current density in the electron beam was obtained, which was in good agreement with normal distribution. The current density on the beam axis was 0.8 mA/mm$^2$. It was found that the electron beam annealing of the thin film of amorphous suboxide silicon led to the formation of crystalline silicon nanoparticles with a size of (4.1 $\pm$ 0.1) nm. The crystallite sizes do not depend on the electron beam current density, in contrast to the degree of crystallinity, which decreases from 40% on the beam axis to zero (amorphous structure) on the periphery. It is assumed that in the process of formation nanocrystalline silicon, a liquid phase is formed.