Lattice compression of Si crystals and crystallographic position of As impurities measured with x-ray standing wave spectroscopy

Abstract

In an earlier letter [Appl. Phys. Lett. 68, 3090 (1996)] we reported results about heavily arsenic doped silicon crystals, where we unambiguously showed, based on x-ray standing wave spectroscopy (XSW) and other techniques, that electrically deactivated As remains essentially substitutional. In this article we present the analysis methodology that led us to said conclusion, and show how from further analysis it is possible to extract the compression or expansion of thin epitaxial layers. We report the evolution of the compression of highly As doped Si epitaxial layers as deactivation takes place. The XSW measurements required a very small thickness of the doped layer and a perfect registry between the substrate and the surface layer. We found larger values for compression than previously reported, which may be explained by the absence of structural defects on our samples that relax the interface stress. Our results show a saturation on the compression as the electron concentration increases. We also report an estimation of the small displacement from perfect substitutional positions suffered by deactivated As.