Selective Si epitaxial growth technique employing atomic hydrogen and substrate temperature modulation

Abstract

We present here a low-temperature (Ts<630 °C) process for the selective epitaxial growth of Si that employs atomic hydrogen. Modulation of both the substrate temperature and the flux of atomic hydrogen gives alternating growth and suppression/etching cycles, resulting in a significant increase in selectivity. Epitaxial thin-film quality is essentially unaffected, as verified by in situ analysis via low-energy electron diffraction, and ex situ analysis via scanning electron and atomic-force microscopy.