During IIT 2018, CEMES’ work on hydrogen implantation in silicon was enlightened with Nikolay Cherkashin’s invited presentation « Materials Sciences aspects of the Smart Cut process » and a contributing oral presentation by Alain Claverie entitled « Thermal Evolution of H-related defects in H-implanted Si: from nanoplatelets to microcracks ». Based on the statistical analysis of populations of nano-platelets at the onset of their transformation into micro-cracks, it was demonstrated that microcracks do not result from the regular diffusive growth of platelets but instead from collective elastic interactions within groups of neighboring platelets, leading to their coalescence. In situ TEM, has confirmed this mechanism, direclty showing the nucleation and growth of cracks of micrometer dimensions from nano-platelets of about 50 nm in diameter.
At the end of the conference, the International Committee awarded Alain CLAVERIE from CEMES-CNRS Toulouse with the Prize for the Best Presentation.
Contacts: Alain Claverie and Nikolay Cherkashin