Oxygen precipitate precursors and size thresholds for the preferential nucleation for copper and nickel precipitation in silicon: the detection of copper and nickel contamination by minority carrier lifetime methods

Bazzali, A.; Borionetti, G.; Orizio, R.; Gambaro, D.; Falster, R.

doi:10.1016/0921-5107(95)01298-2

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…3,4 Recently, it was observed by the surface photovoltage ͑SPV͒ method that optical activation drastically enhances recombination activity in p-type silicon which contains copper. 5,6 Bazzali et al 7 have reported similar behavior of enhanced recombination activity of copper in silicon in the presence of small oxygen precipitates. By combining these observations, the authors have discovered that the microwave photoconductive decay ͑PCD͒ method in conjunction with high intensity bias light can be used to detect copper contamination in p-type silicon which contains small oxygen precipitates.…”

mentioning

confidence: 77%

Sensitive Copper Detection in P-type CZ Silicon using μPCD

Väinölä

Yli-Koski

Haarahiltunen

et al. 2003

J. Electrochem. Soc.

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Conventional microwave photoconductive decay ͑PCD͒ method in conjunction with high intensity bias light has been used to study out-diffusion and precipitation of copper in p-type Czochralski ͑CZ͒ silicon. The high intensity light is used to activate the precipitation of interstitial copper, which follows Ham's kinetics and results in a distinctive decrease in the excess carrier lifetime. Results indicate that Cu concentration well below 10 12 cm Ϫ3 can be detected by this method. It is demonstrated that positive corona charge can be used to prevent out-diffusion of interstitial copper, while negative charge enables copper to freely diffuse to the wafer surfaces. It was observed that the precipitation rate of copper increased significantly when the bias-light intensity is raised above a certain critical level. In addition, the copper precipitation rate was discovered to be much higher in samples which have internal gettering sites. These findings suggest that (i) high intensity light reduces the electrostatic repulsion between positively charged interstitial copper ions and copper precipitates enabling copper to precipitate in the wafer bulk even at a low concentration level, and (ii) during high intensity illumination, oxygen precipitates provide effective heterogeneous nucleation sites for copper.

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mentioning

confidence: 77%

Sensitive Copper Detection in P-type CZ Silicon using μPCD

Väinölä

Yli-Koski

Haarahiltunen

et al. 2003

J. Electrochem. Soc.

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“…It was reported [6,[27][28][29][30][31] that the transition metals silicide precipitates can be dissolved into the silicon substrate during subsequent high temperature annealing, here is 1050 • C. It is easy for nickel silicides to dissolve from the structural defect due to the high solubilities and diffusivities of nickel [28]. As mentioned above, the supersaturated interstitial nickel impurities can diffuse to the surface or precipitate in the bulk [14][15][16][17]32,33].…”

Section: Contamination Before the First High Temperature Annealingmentioning

confidence: 98%

Influence of nickel precipitation on the formation of denuded zone in Czochralski silicon

Wang

Yang

et al. 2010

Journal of Alloys and Compounds

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“…Also, copper is known as a ''haze-forming'' impurity, because precipitates form easily at the silicon surface, where they are detected as haze using preferential etching techniques. 1,14 It is important to note that expression 1 describes the solubility of copper in silicon accurately under equilibrium conditions. 12 The copper concentration can be orders of magnitude larger, if nucleation and growth of copper silicide has not been kinetically allowed z E-mail: Thomas.Heiser@phase.c-strasbourg.fr during the contamination step.…”

Section: Copper Behavior In Bulk Siliconmentioning

confidence: 99%

Copper Behavior in Bulk Silicon and Associated Characterization Techniques

Heiser

Belayachi

Schunck

2003

J. Electrochem. Soc.

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This work reviews recent developments in the field of copper trace detection by advanced electrical techniques and presents new data on the behavior of copper in silicon. First the current understanding of copper in silicon is described. In addition, physical principles, assumptions, and limitations of electrical methods based either on minority carrier dynamics, or transient ion drift ͑TID͒ are discussed. In the second part new TID data obtained on quantitatively contaminated silicon are given. The influences of annealing temperature, cooling rate, and storage conditions on copper impurities are addressed. It is shown that in high quality silicon, copper impurities may remain on interstitial sites for several days at room temperature. Under illumination the surface photovoltage increases the out-diffusion rate considerably. In float-zone material, evidence for copper trapping by grown-in defects is given. The discussion focuses on the impact these results have on the copper trace detection methods.

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Oxygen precipitate precursors and size thresholds for the preferential nucleation for copper and nickel precipitation in silicon: the detection of copper and nickel contamination by minority carrier lifetime methods

Cited by 14 publications

References 6 publications

Sensitive Copper Detection in P-type CZ Silicon using μPCD

Sensitive Copper Detection in P-type CZ Silicon using μPCD

Influence of nickel precipitation on the formation of denuded zone in Czochralski silicon

Copper Behavior in Bulk Silicon and Associated Characterization Techniques

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