Application of Solid Phase Epitaxy for Measuring Dangling Bond Densities and Impurity Ionization in Amorphous Silicon

Abstract

AbstractAccording to a recent model [1], the enhancement in the rate of the solid phase epitaxial regrowth (SPER) of silicon produced by implanted impurities is determined by the superposition of reconstruction at sites that capture neutral, and ionized, three-fold coordinated dangling bond states. Considerable support for this model is derived from experiments on ionization-enhanced SPER in silicon. In this paper we discuss how this dangling bond model (DBM) could be used to determine the densities of neutral dangling bonds and ionized impurities in amorphous silicon from these experimental results. Both densities, determined by a self-consistent calculation, are in good agreement with those measured by other types of experiments. This result provides further support for the DBM and indicates that simultaneous SPER and ESR measurements could make it possible to depth profile low concentrations of ionized impurities in amorphous silicon.