Formation of buried Sb dopant profiles in silicon by pulsed laser epitaxy

Abstract

In this investigation buried Sb dopant profiles in single crystal silicon have been formed from evaporated layers using laser annealing. For irradiations carried out in air, severe oxidation of the surface layers inhibited epitaxy. Oxygen concentrations as high as 5 × 1017 atoms/cm2 (equivalent to about 105 nm SiO2) were measured. It was found that both the thin (less than 3 nm) Sb layer and the free volume in the a-Si, deposited by evaporation onto a cold substrate, need to be present for this degree of oxidation to take place. However, when silicon was evaporated onto a substrate heated to 350 °C, dense packing of the silicon atoms was obtained and even for irradiations in air good epitaxy (minimum yield of 7%) and no oxidation occurred. To form buried Sb profiles, laser energies only slightly higher than the threshold for epitaxy were used to prevent excessive spreading due to an increase in liquid state diffusion obtained at higher energies. Under these conditions the width of the buried Sb profile was typically about 120 nm, and up to 90% of the Sb atoms were found to occupy lattice sites.