SSRM and SCM observation of modified lateral diffusion of As, BF2 and Sb induced by nitride spacers.

Abstract

ABSTRACTInitial studies (using Scanning Spreading Resistance Microscopy) on the lateral diffusion of B and As have shown an important influence of the thickness of oxy/nitride spacers. The latter phenomenon was tentatively ascribed to stress enhanced diffusion under the spacer region [1]. These studies have been complemented with Scanning Capacitance Microscopy (SCM) measurements, which confirm the SSRM-data. In fact both techniques shows a similar increase in lateral diffusion with increasing spacer thickness (∼ 0.2 nm/nm spacer thickness), whereby no effect is observed on the vertical diffusion. When using spacers with or without TEOS-liner, fairly similar enhancements could be seen. Micro-Raman and CBED stress measurements for these cases do however show a large reduction in stress when a TEOS-liner is used, suggesting that the correlation (at least to the final) stress is not really justified. A possible explanation could however be that the lateral diffusion occurs before the stress relaxation within the thermal treatment. In order to elucidate the diffusion mechanism (initial stress, interstitials, hydrogen incorporation, TED,..) we have expandedthe experimental matrix with a vacancy diffuser such as Sb and simulated the potential H-incorporation duringthe nitride deposition by a hydrogen anneal. Moreover we also have studied the impact of TED by splits with RTP-anneals before the nitride deposition.