Electronic states created in p-Si subjected to plasma etching: The role of inherent impurities, point defects, and hydrogen

Abstract

Reactive ion etching and magnetically enhanced reactive ion etching with CHF3/O2 are employed to remove SiO2 from boron-doped Si substrates. Etch-induced gap states in the substrate are monitored using deep-level transient spectroscopy. The dominant state is found to be a donor with a hole binding energy of 0.36 eV. The state has been identified as that of the carbon-interstitial oxygen-interstitial pair. The depth profile of the pair is determined by two competing mechanisms: the pair generation and its electrical deactivation by atomic hydrogen. The latter process is especially prevalent in the presence of a magnetic field.

Atomic force microscopy study of Si(111) surface morphology and electrical characteristics of Pd/n-Si schottky diodes: effect of cleaning procedures

“…Secondly, the lower IÈV barrier heights of the corresponding SBDs can be related to the high values of */ b given in Table 2. It is, therefore, concluded that higher densities of interfacial states could be present on the cleaned samples when the average surface roughness exceeds 5 Furthermore, the bar charts shown in Fig. Ó.…”

“…CurrentÈvoltage (IÈV ) and capacitanceÈvoltage (CÈV ) measurements were used to monitor the rectifying properties of the diodes. The diode currents were (I R 5). All the diode characteristics were measured at room temperature and averaged over at least six diodes.…”

Plasma-charging damage to gate SiO2 and SiO2/Si interfaces in submicron n-channel transistors: Latent defects and passivation/depassivation of defects by hydrogen

“…14 Atomic hydrogen has also been shown to neutralize deep levels in these materials. 15,16 The neutralization of deep levels by hydrogen is called passivation and it involves removal of energy levels from the band gap as a consequence of hydrogen bonding to the dangling bonds in the defects.…”

Deep level transient spectroscopy characterization of 1 keV He, Ne, and Ar ion bombarded, epitaxially grown n-Si

“…3,4 The changes in SBD characteristics have also been used to monitor the amount of damage induced in Si as a function of process parameters, such as ion energy, sputtering yield, and exposure time and, in the case of plasma etching, also as a function of plasma pressure and etch rate. [5][6][7] Defects involving noble gas atoms in Si have been observed. 8,9 Photoluminescence ͑PL͒ measurements of Si implanted with 20-350 keV noble gas ions ͑NGI͒ have shown that after annealing, energy shifts in the no-phonon ͑NP͒ peak ͑W, 1.018 eV͒ of the well-known intrinsic I 1 defect occur.…”