Engineering the size and density of silicon agglomerates by controlling the initial surface carbonated contamination

Actually, thermally induced thin-films dewetting silicon in the silicon-on-insulator is a way to obtain silicon agglomerates with a size and a density fixed by the silicon film thickness. In this paper we report a new method to monitor both the size and the density of the Si agglomerates thanks to the deposition of a carbon-like layer. We show that using a 5-nm thick layer of silicon and additional ≤1-nm carbonated layer; we obtain agglomerates sizes ranging from 35 nm to 60 nm with respectively an agglomerate density ranging from 38 μm−2 to 18 μm−2. Additionally, for the case of strained silicon films an alternative dewetting mechanism can be induced by monitoring the chemical composition of the sample surface.