  Amorphous silicon materials and its alloys become extensively used in some
technical applications involving large area of the microelectronic and
optoelectronic devices. However, the amorphous-crystalline transition,
segregation and diffusion processes still have numerous unanswered questions.
In this work we study the Sb diffusion into an amorphous Si film by means of
Secondary Neutral Mass Spectrometry (SNMS). Amorphous Si/Si1-xSbx/Si tri-layer
samples with 5 at% antimony concentration were prepared by DC magnetron
sputtering onto Si substrate at room temperature. Annealing of the samples were
performed at different temperature in vacuum (p<10-7 mbar) and 100 bar high
purity (99.999%) Ar pressure. During annealing a rather slow mixing between the
Sb-alloyed and the amorphous Si layers was observed. Supposing concentration
independent diffusion, the evaluated diffusion coefficients are in the range of
~10-21 m2s-1 at 823 K.
