Oxygen segregation and Ge diffusion in annealed oxygen ion-implanted relaxed SiGe/Si heterostructures

Abstract

Relaxed SiGe-on-insulator (SGOI) is a suitable material to fabricate strained Si structures. Separation-by-implantation-of-oxygen (SIMOX) is a competing method to synthesize SGOI materials. In this work, SiGe/Si samples were implanted with 3×1017 cm−2 oxygen ions at 60 kV, followed by high-temperature annealing. Oxygen segregation and Ge diffusion during the annealing process were investigated using Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy/channeling (RBS/C), high-resolution x-ray diffraction (HRXRD), and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). Our results show that the sample structure strongly depends on the thermal history and Ge diffuses mainly at the beginning stage of the high-temperature process. The process can be improved by introducing an annealing step at a medium temperature before high-temperature annealing, and sharper interfaces and good crystal quality can be obtained. Our results indicate that the SIMOX process for silicon-on-insulator (SOI) fabrication can be adopted to produce SGOI.