Effects of Thermal Annealing on the Formation of Buried β-SiC by Ion Implantation

Abstract

A systematic study of the formation of buried β-SiC structures by carbon ion implantation into Si followed by high-temperature thermal annealing has been carried out. A high fluence of carbon ions (8 × 1017 atoms/cm2) was implanted at 65 keV energy. Formation of the crystalline β-SiC phase was monitored by Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction (XRD), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques. The implanted samples were annealed at 900°C and 1100°C to observe the effects of annealing temperature on the formation of crystalline β-SiC. Formation of crystalline β-SiC was clearly observed in the sample annealed at 1100°C in a flowing nitrogen environment for a period of 1 h. Graphitic carbon clusters were observed at the implanted carbon profile peak position by XPS depth profile measurements. Various structural defects such as grain boundaries were also visualized in the annealed sample by high-resolution TEM.