Dissolution of extended defects in strained silicon

Abstract

The experimental and theoretical analyses performed in this work provide an insight into the impact of external stress on extended defects that form in silicon after ion implantation. It is shown experimentally that the embedded SiGe source/drain regions help to dissolve the extended defects in the adjacent silicon. The reduced amount of free and clustered interstitials is known to reduce junction leakage and increase dopant activation. These benefits are expected to improve further for the subsequent technology generations, due to the shrinking distance between the source and drain SiGe regions. A quantitative model of defect evolution in silicon with embedded SiGe is proposed. The model can be applied to optimize the combination of stress engineering, implant conditions, and thermal budget for the best device performance.