Possibility of quasi-single-crystalline semiconductor films

The existence of a novel tetrahedral semiconductor Quasi-Single-Crystalline (QSC) phase is posited. In the QSC semiconductor phase, the films consist of grains with a diamond structure of tetrahedral elements, such as Si, Ge and C, and the grains have a preferred orientation, such as < 111 > or < 100 > normal to the film. The lattices perpendicular to the grain boundaries are quasi-matched with neighboring grains. The grains in the films form a regular array, and are distributed more uniformly than in conventional poly-crystalline semiconductor films. Because of the small-angle grain boundaries, a tetrahedral QSC semiconductor such as QSC Si films are expected to have extremely low energy barriers at the grain boundaries.