Structure Determination of Clusters Formed in Ultra-Low Energy High-Dose Implanted Silicon

Abstract

In this work, we present a detailed structural characterization of the defects formed after 0.5 keV B+ implantation into Si to a dose of 1x1015 ions/cm2 and annealed at 650°C and 750°C during different times up to 160 s. The clusters were characterized by making use of Weak Beam and High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM) imaging. They are found to be platelets of several nanometer size with (001) habit plane. Conventional TEM procedure based on defect contrast behavior was applied to determine the directions of their Burger’s vectors. Geometric Phase Analysis of HRTEM images was used to measure the displacement field around these objects and, thus, to unambiguously determine their Burger’s vectors. Finally five types of dislocation loops lying on (001) plane are marked out: with ] 001 [1/3 ≅ b and b ∝ [1 0 1], [-1 0 1], [0 1 1], [0 -1 1].