Stacking Fault Energy of Si Nanocrystals Embedded in SiO2

Si nanocrystals (Si nc) were produced by the implantation of Si + into a SiO 2 film on (100) Si, followed by high-temperature annealing. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) observation has shown that a perfect dislocation (Burgers vector b = (1 / 2) 〈 110 〉 ) can dissociate into two Shockley partials (Burgers vector b = (1 / 6) 〈 112 〉 ) bounding a strip of stacking faults (SFs). The width of the SFs has been determined from the HRTEM image, and the stacking fault energy for Si nc has been calculated. The stacking fault energy for Si nc is compared with that for bulk Si, and the formation probability of defects in Si nc is also discussed. The results will shed a light on the dissociation of dislocations in nanoparticles.