Multiply faulted defects in high-current oxygen-implanted silicon-on-insulator

Abstract

High-dose oxygen implantation into silicon, SIMOX (separation by implantation of oxygen), is a leading technique for producing silicon-on-insulator (SOI) material. Most studies have examined SIMOX prepared with a traditional implanter, which has beam currents of 100 to 400 μA. Since the formation of SIMOX requires a very high dose of oxygen, typically one hundred times larger than the standard dopant implant doses, the process takes many hours. Recently, a high-current implanter has been developed for SIMOX fabrication, which produces a 40 mA beam current. However, the higher current density has not only shortened the implantation time, but also produced features not routinely observed in samples implanted at much lower currents. The study reported here used conventional transmission and high resolution electron microscopy (CTEM,HREM) to characterize microstructure and defects in SIMOX implanted at high currents.