Impact of CF₄ Plasma Treatment on the Surface Roughness of Ion Implanted SiC Induced by High Temperature Annealing

Abstract

The impact of CF4 plasma treatment on the surface roughening of SiC has been investigated for N ion implanted SiC(0001) which is implanted with the energy range from 15 to 120 keV at a dose of 9.2 x 1014/cm2. The N ion implanted sample, which is processed by CF4 plasma, shows small surface roughness of 1.6 nm after annealing at 1700 oC for 10 min, while the sample without CF4 plasma treatment shows the large surface roughness (6.6nm) and micro step structure. XPS measurements reveals that CF4 plasma treatment is effective to dissolved the residual oxide on the surface of SiC which is not removed by BHF acid of SiO2 layer on SiC. It is strongly suggested that the formation of micro step structure with the increase of the surface roughness is promoted by the residual oxide such as SiCOx, on SiC.