<title>Rapid thermal annealing of ion-implanted InP, InGaAs, and InSb</title>

Abstract

Rapid thermal annealing (RTA) yields improved electrical activation and carrier mobility compared to conventional furnace annealing (FA) in III-V compounds. This paper reviews the results of our RTA work on indium based compounds. Studies on InP, InGaAs, and InSb implanted with various species at room and elevated temperatures are presented. The RTAs were performed using a halogen lamp station for InP and InGaAs, and a metal strip heater for InSb, using dielectric and proximity caps. Donor electrical activations close to 100 % were obtained for 875°C/10 s RTA on Si implanted InP:Fe for ion energies up to 20 MeV and for doses which do not make the material amorphous. RBS measurements on the annealed material indicated an effective removal of the implant damage. The RTA on Be/P and Be/ Ar coimplanted InP:Fe yielded acceptor Be electrical activations of 80 % without Be in-diffusion. The RTA on Ge implanted InP:Fe gave a maximum donor activation of 50 %. For low-energy Si and Be/P implantations into In0.53 Ga0.47 As, the results are similar to those of InP. The RTA performed on transition metal (Fe, Cr, and V) implanted InGaAs has resulted in the diffusion of the dopant and formation of multiple peaks in the implant profile. Only Fe implantation gave highly resistive regions in n-type InGaAs. Light ion (H, He, B) bombardment on p-type InGaAs gave resistivities close to the intrinsic limit which are stable up to a maximum processing temperature of 350 °C. RTA on Be implanted InSb grown on GaAs gave p-type activation as high as 89 %. Sulphur implantation in InSb yielded a maximum of only 16 % donor activation even for anneals at 510 °C, which is close to the melting point temperature of InSb. Silicon implant showed amphoteric behavior in InSb.