Electrical properties of pn junctions formed by plasma enhanced epitaxial growth

Abstract

Plasma enhanced selective area microcrystalline silicon deposition on hydrogenated amorphous silicon: Surface modification for controlled nucleation Properly functioning pn junction diodes have been fabricated by a low temperature plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition ͑PECVD͒ technique. The diodes were constructed such that the metallurgical junction was coincident with the starting substrate surface. The electrical quality of the diodes was quantified by measuring their reverse bias leakage current. Contrary to popular opinion, it has been shown that the PECVD process is inherently capable of producing device quality material, and rather it is the in situ plasma cleaning technique typically associated with this method that is the cause of poor electrical performance. The chemical and physical nature of defects caused by the plasma cleaning step have been investigated by various experimental techniques including photoluminescence, secondary ion mass spectroscopy, and atomic force microscopy. The plasma cleaning step has been linked in certain cases to the production of a photoluminescence signal in Czochralski grown Si wafers. Results show that the plasma clean is neither required nor desired in the low temperature growth of device quality epitaxial Si thin films.

An atomically controlled Si film formation process at low temperatures using atmospheric-pressure VHF plasma

“…Recently, the low-temperature Si epitaxial growth technique draws considerable attention as inline epitaxial techniques which are applicable to the semiconductor device manufacturing process [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. For example, it becomes very important for the future semiconductor device technology to develop low-temperature doping and epitaxial growth techniques for the formation of p + or n + layers after fabricating the main parts of devices, and low-temperature selective epitaxial growth techniques for fabricating p-or ntype microscopic structures.…”

High-quality epitaxial Si growth at low temperatures by atmospheric pressure plasma CVD

“…So far, much effort has been dedicated to reduce the growth temperature by using plasma enhancement and/ or ion assistance [1][2][3], or using catalytic reaction between source gases and W hot wires [4]. In general, however, epitaxial films grown at low temperatures usually contain high-density of defects and O and C impurities of which concentrations peaked at the film/substrate interface.…”

Selective Epitaxial Growth of Silicon for Vertical Diode Application

“…For several decades, the selective epitaxial growth (SEG) technique has attracted world-wide attention for its applications to silicon devices, including device isolation, 1) epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELO), 2) and elevated source/drain (ESD) fabrication for the metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) structure. 3) Silicon or SiGe has been intensively studied, and many studies have explored numerous growth techniques such as plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), 4) ultrahigh vacuum CVD (UHV-CVD), 5) and UHV rapid thermal-CVD (UHV-RTCVD). 6) Recently, SEG has extended its versatility to novel technologies.…”