ABSTRACT
Nanocrystalline silicon consists of nano-sized crystallites and their counterpart, amorphous networks, formed with high density islands separated by low density tissues [1]. We speculate the nanocrystalline silicon, as a mixed substance of grains/grain boundaries and amorphous networks, in which the nanocrystalline states are rather visible than the amorphous networks because they are mesoscopic in a nano-sized scale, while the amorphous networks are more invisible than for nanocrystalline states because they are microscopic in the nano-sized scale. Thus we focus on how nanocrystalline silicon is understood in terms of amorphous and nanocrystalline states and characterized with the measurements of high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), Raman scattering, and X-ray diffraction (XRD).
