Direct evidence of recrystallization rate enhancement during rapid thermal annealing of phosphorus amorphized silicon layers

Abstract

The solid phase epitaxial regrowth of implanted phosphorus amorphized 〈100〉 silicon during rapid thermal annealing (RTA) in the temperature range 475–600 °C has been studied using Rutherford backscattering and channeling measurements. Within the temperature range 475–550 °C, our results show an enhancement of growth rate (Vg) by a factor of 4 when compared with values reported in literature for processing in a conventional furnace, with an activation energy of 2.7±0.2 eV. For temperatures above 550 °C, a reduction of this enhancement effect sets in, with a fall in the enhancement factor from 4 at 550 °C to about 1.5 at 600 °C. Estimation of the absolute error in temperature measurement in the RTA furnace shows that the accelerated kinetics cannot be completely explained by such errors as they are small compared to the enhancement rate. These results therefore give evidence of RTA induced enhancement of growth rate during solid phase recrystallization of implantation-amorphized silicon.