Metastable Activation in Rapid Thermal Annealed Arsenic Implanted Silicon

Abstract

ABSTRACTLow temperature (600–800&C) thermal treatment subsequent to high temperature short time anneal of As implanted Si has resulted in significant clustering of As atoms in Si. Si wafers implanted with As at a variety of doses and energies were subjected to single and multiple thermal anneals using incoherent tungsten radiation. Sheet resistance (R▩ ), and Rutherford backscattering (RBS) and channeling measurements were carried out on the wafers. The metastable behavior observed in the activation of As was attributed to electrical deactivation of As atoms caused by clustering. From the temperature dependence of the rate of increase in R▩ we extracted a value of 1.1 eV for the activation energy of electronic deactivation of As atoms in agreement with the value obtained earlier for the activation of As clustering. We also report, for the first time, observation of a structure in the Si RBS spectrum which represents a defective layer in Si caused by the clustering As atoms.