Diffusion enhancement due to low-energy ion bombardment during sputter etching and deposition

Abstract

The effects of low-energy ion bombardment on enhancing elemental diffusion rates at both heterojunction interfaces during film deposition and over the compositionally altered layer created during sputter etching alloy targets have been considered. Depth dependent enhanced interdiffusion coefficients, expressed as D*(x)=D*(0) exp(−x/Ld), where D*(0) is more than five orders of magnitude greater than thermal diffusion values, were measured in InSb/GaSb multilayer structures deposited by multitarget bias sputering. D*(0) was determined from the amplitude u of the compositional modulation in the multilayered films (layer thicknesses between 20 and 45 Å) as measured by superlattice x-ray diffraction techniques. The value of D*(0) was found to increase from 3×10−17 to 1×10−16 cm2/sec as the applied substrate bias was increased from 0 to −75 V. However even at Va=0, the diffusion coefficient was enhanced owing to an induced substrate potential with respect to the positive space-charge region in the Ar discharge. The diffusion length of Ld of the ion bombardment created defects was ∼1000 Å. Enhanced diffusion also has a significiant effect on the altered layer thickness xe and the total sputtering time te (or ion dose) required to reach steady state during ion etching of multielement targets. The effects of using an exponentially depth dependent versus a constant value of the enhanced diffusion coefficient on calculated values of xe and te in single-phase binary alloys were considered. The results show that both xe and te are considerably larger using a depth dependent D*(x), when Ld<D*(0)/v, where v is the steady-state surface recession velocity during sputter etching. However, when Ld≳D*(0)/v, the usual case for most sputtering applications, the two solutions approach each other.