Atomic-scale disproportionation in amorphous silicon monoxide

Akihiko Hirata (), Shinji Kohara, Toshihiro Asada, Masazumi Arao, Chihiro Yogi, Hideto Imai, Yongwen Tan, Takeshi Fujita and Mingwei Chen ()
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Akihiko Hirata: WPI Advanced Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University
Shinji Kohara: Quantum Beam Unit, National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS)
Toshihiro Asada: NISSAN ARC Ltd.
Masazumi Arao: NISSAN ARC Ltd.
Chihiro Yogi: NISSAN ARC Ltd.
Hideto Imai: NISSAN ARC Ltd.
Yongwen Tan: WPI Advanced Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University
Takeshi Fujita: WPI Advanced Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University
Mingwei Chen: WPI Advanced Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Solid silicon monoxide is an amorphous material which has been commercialized for many functional applications. However, the amorphous structure of silicon monoxide is a long-standing question because of the uncommon valence state of silicon in the oxide. It has been deduced that amorphous silicon monoxide undergoes an unusual disproportionation by forming silicon- and silicon-dioxide-like regions. Nevertheless, the direct experimental observation is still missing. Here we report the amorphous structure characterized by angstrom-beam electron diffraction, supplemented by synchrotron X-ray scattering and computer simulations. In addition to the theoretically predicted amorphous silicon and silicon-dioxide clusters, suboxide-type tetrahedral coordinates are detected by angstrom-beam electron diffraction at silicon/silicon-dioxide interfaces, which provides compelling experimental evidence on the atomic-scale disproportionation of amorphous silicon monoxide. Eventually we develop a heterostructure model of the disproportionated silicon monoxide which well explains the distinctive structure and properties of the amorphous material.

Date: 2016
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms11591

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