Several aspects of a new silicon-on-insulator technique utilizing bonding of oxidized silicon wafers were investigated. The bonding was achieved by heating in an inert atmosphere a pair of wafers with hydrophilic surfaces contacted face-to-face. A quantitative method for the evaluation of the surface energy of the bond based on crack propagation theory was developed. The bond strength was found to increase with the bonding temperature from about 60–85 erg/cm2 at room temperature to ≂2200 erg/cm2 at 1400 °C. The strength was essentially independent of the bond time. Bonds created during 10-s annealing at 800 °C were mechanically strong enough to withstand the mechanical and/or chemical thinning of the top wafer to the desired thickness and subsequent device processing. A model was proposed to explain three distinct phases of bonding in the temperature domain. Electrical properties of the bond were tested using metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) capacitors. The results were consistent with a negative charge density at the bond interface of approximately 1011 cm−2. A double-etch-back procedure was used to thin the device wafer to the desired thickness with ±20 nm thickness uniformity across a 4-in. wafer. The density of threading dislocations in the remaining silicon layer was 102 –103 cm−2, and the residual dopant concentration less than 5×1015 cm−3, both remnants of the etchstop layer. Complimentary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) devices made in the 20–100 nm silicon thick layers had subthreshold slopes of 68 mV/decade (both n- and p-channel MOS transistors). The effective carrier lifetime was 15–20 μs in 80- and 300-nm-thick Si films and the interface state density at the Si film-buried oxide interface was ≤5×1010 cm−2.
We have combined electron paramagnetic resonance and capacitance-voltage measurements to identify the chemical nature and charge state of defects in BESOI and SIMOX materials. The four types of defect centers observed, charged oxygen vacancies, delocalized hole centers, amorphous-Si centers, and oxygen-related donors, are strikingly similar. In the BESOI materials, the radiation-induced EPR centers are located at or near the bonded interface. Therefore, the bonded interface is a potential hole trap site and may lead to radiation-induced back-channel leakage. In SIMOX materials it is found that all of the defects in the buried oxide are due to excess-Si. Our results using poly-Si/thermal oxide/Si structures strongly suggest that it is the post-implantation, high temperature anneal processing step in SIMOX that leads to their existence. The anneal leads to the outdiffusion of oxygen from the buried oxide creating excess-Si related defects in the oxide and O-related donors in the underlying Si substrates. Last, our study has elucidated a number of interesting aspects regarding the physical nature of a relatively new class of defects in Si02: delocalized spin centers. We find that they are hole traps in both SIMOX and BESOI materials.
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