Comparative study of the effect of annealing of nitrogen-implanted silicon-on-insulator structures by spectroscopic ellipsometry, cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy and Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy

Abstract

The effect of post implantation high temperature annealing of 330 keV nitrogen-implanted silicon-on-insulator (SOI) structures was investigated by spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE). The implantation was performed at a dose of 1.2 × 10 18 N + cm −2 at 500 °C into 〈100〉 silicon. The samples were annealed after implantation at different temperatures and times: 1000 °C, 2 h; 1100 °C, 2 h; 1200 °C, 0.5 h; 1200 °C, 2 h; 1200 °C, 5 h; 1250 °C, 0.5 h; 1300 °C, 0.5 h. From the SE spectra the quality of the nitride layer was evaluated. The dependence of the features of the interfaces on the annealing time and temperature were followed with the help of a multilayer optical model and least-squares fit. The results were supported by cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy and Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy (RBS) channeling investigations.