Modeling and experiments on diffusion and activation of phosphorus in germanium

Abstract

We report on phosphorus diffusion and activation related phenomena in germanium. We have used both conventional thermal processing and laser annealing by pulsed nanosecond Nd:YAG laser. Chemical profiles were obtained by secondary-ion-mass spectroscopy, sheet resistance was estimated by the van der Pauw method, and structural defects were monitored by transmission electron microscopy. Our study covers the temperature range from 440 to 750 °C, and we were able to efficiently simulate the dopant profiles within that temperature range, taking into account a quadratic dependence of the P diffusion coefficient on the free electron concentration. To achieve that we have taken into account dopant activation dependence on temperature as well as dopant pile-up near the surface and dopant loss owing to outdiffusion during the annealing. A combined laser thermal treatment above the melting threshold prior to conventional annealing allowed the elimination of the implantation damage, so we could perceive the influence of defects on both transient dopant diffusion and outdiffusion.