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American Physical Society, Physical Review Letters, 5(96), 2006

DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.96.055901

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Nitrogen diffusion in amorphous silicon nitride isotope multilayers probed by neutron reflectometry.

Journal article published in 2006 by H. Schmidt ORCID, M. Gupta, M. Bruns
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Abstract

Amorphous silicon nitride is a model system for a covalently bound amorphous solid with a low atomic mobility where reasonable values of self-diffusivities are still lacking. We used neutron reflectometry on isotope enriched Si3 14N4/Si3 15N4 multilayers to determine nitrogen self-diffusivities ranging from 10(-24) to 10(-21) m2/s between 950 and 1250 degrees C. Time dependent diffusivities observed at 1150 degrees C indicate the presence of structural relaxation. For long annealing times (relaxed state) the diffusivities follow an Arrhenius law with an activation enthalpy of (3.6 +/- 0.4) eV. The results are indicative of a direct diffusion mechanism without the involvement of thermal point defects.