Effect of annealing temperature on the kinetics of aluminum-induced crystallization of silicon suboxide thin films

In this work, the kinetics of aluminum-induced crystallization (AIC) of non-stoichiometric silicon oxide $\alpha$-SiO$_{0.25}$ was investigated for annealing temperatures of 370, 385 and 400$^{\circ}$C, as a result of which thin films of polycrystalline silicon were obtained. It is shown that for low annealing temperatures, the surface morphology of the crystalline material is represented by dendric structures corresponding to the growth model with diffusion-limited aggregation. In addition, with an increase in the annealing temperature, the nucleation density increases from 3 to 53 mm$^{-2}$. From the Arrhenius plot, the activation energy of the AIC process of $\alpha$-SiO$_{0.25}$ was obtained for the first time, which was 3.7 $\pm$ 0.4 eV.