Surface Damage on Si Substrates Caused by Reactive Sputter Etching

Abstract

Surface damage on silicon substrates caused by RSE has been investigated. Defects are classified into four categories in order of destruction, namely, precipitates surrounded by elastic strain field, surface roughness pattern, polycrystalline and amorphous silicon, and no defects, based on the results of TEM and RHEED observation. In particular, precipitates which reach a depth more than 500 Å were found to cause OSF. The surface damage consists of contamination (C, F, O) layer, C and defect mixed layer, and defect layer in order from the top. The degree of these defects and contaminations expand with increasing power density and etching duration. RSE conditions, where no defects are formed, were determined, e.g., within 1 minute at 0.4 W cm-2.

Effects of Plasma-Induced Si Recess Structure on n-MOSFET Performance Degradation

“…Plasma-induced damage (PID) is classified on the basis of mechanisms as charging damage, physical damage, and radiation damage [2]. During the last two decades, PID has been studied extensively to understand the mechanisms and to solve practical problems [3]- [5]. Physical damage [3], [6] is commonly associated with the damage induced by high-energy ion bombardment incident on Si or other material surfaces.…”

Application of Molecular Dynamics Simulations to Plasma Etch Damage in Advanced Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors

“…So far, PID has been evaluated by a wide variety of techniques (Awadelkarim et al, 1994;Egashira et al, 1998;Kokura et al, 2005;Mu et al, 1986;Oehrlein et al, 1988;Yabumoto et (Eriguchi et al, 2008a;. Figure 13 shows the estimated local defect site density from photoreflectance spectra of the test structures damaged by the ICP system (closed squares, on the left axis).…”

Optical Observation of Deep Bulk Damage in Amorphous Perfluorocarbon Films Produced by UV Photons Emitted from Low-Pressure Argon Plasma

“…Soon after the development of reactive ion etching [1,2], plasma-induced damage such as gate oxide breakdown due to charge build-up and lattice defects induced by high-energy ion bombardment were reported [3][4][5]. When magnetized high-density plasma etchers such as electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasma etchers and magnetically enhanced reactive ion etchers (MERIEs) came into practical use in the late 1980s, intensive researches were carried out to overcome the problem of gate oxide breakdown originating from the poor plasma uniformity over a wafer.…”