Vacuum hydride epitaxy of silicon: kinetics of monosilane pyrolysis on the growth surface

Abstract

Analytical expressions relating the rate of silicon atom incorporation into a growing crystal to the typical frequency of silane molecule pyrolysis on the silicon surface in the growth temperature range are derived. Based on currently available experimental data, the range of typical decomposition frequencies of hydride molecule radicals adsorbed at the silicon wafer surface in the temperature range of 450–700°C is determined for the most widely used physicochemical models. It is shown that the most probable molecular decomposition model can be chosen based on the experimental study of the temperature dependence of the decomposition rate of adsorbed hydride molecules. A change in the silane molecule pyrolysis rate or the hydrogen desorption rate from the surface in principle makes it possible to increase the Si layer growth rate without additional substrate heating under conditions of low-temperature epitaxy (450–550°C), but no larger than by a factor of 2–3 in the former case and up to 100 times in the latter case. The analysis performed shows that physicochemical pyrolysis models in which hydrogen is trapped by the surface, mostly at the stage of decomposition of silane radicals adsorbed by the surface, are more realistic.