The Crystallographic Properties of Strained Silicon Measured by X-Ray Diffraction

Erdtmann, M.; Langdo, T. A.

doi:10.1007/s10854-006-5627-z

Cited by 31 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…The relaxation is shown to saturate at around 2%, and is overall very low, compared to the relaxation of compressively strained SiGe layers under the same degree of strain. 4 HRXRD reciprocal space maps display peak broadening of the strained silicon peak due to mosaicity 5 caused by the presence of misfit dislocations at the strained silicon interface, which warp the diffraction planes. The effect is more pronounced in thicker samples, where the misfit dislocation density ͑MDD͒ is greater.…”

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confidence: 99%

Misfit strain relaxation and dislocation formation in supercritical strained silicon on virtual substrates

Parsons

Parker

Leadley

et al. 2007

Applied Physics Letters

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Relaxation of strained silicon on 20% linear graded virtual substrates was quantified using high resolution x-ray diffraction and a defect etching technique. The thickness of strained silicon was varied between 10 and 180 nm. Relaxation was observed in layers below the critical thickness but increased to only 2% relaxation in the thickest layers even with annealings up to 950°C. Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy revealed stacking faults present in layers thicker than 25 nm, and nucleated 90°Shockley partial dislocations forming microtwins in the thickest layer. These features are implicated in the impediment of the relaxation process.

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confidence: 99%

Misfit strain relaxation and dislocation formation in supercritical strained silicon on virtual substrates

Parsons

Parker

Leadley

et al. 2007

Applied Physics Letters

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“…The 422 reflection in glancing-incidence geometry was measured according to the procedure reported by Erdtmann and Langdo. 10 Our HRXRD measurements have shown that slight strain relaxation occurs during RTA at all temperatures in our range of interest. This is consistent with work recently published on misfit strain relaxation in strained Si.…”

Section: Applied Physics Letters 92 233506 ͑2008͒mentioning

confidence: 65%

Constraints on micro-Raman strain metrology for highly doped strained Si materials

O'Reilly

Horan

McNally

et al. 2008

Applied Physics Letters

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Ultraviolet ͑UV͒, low penetration depth, micro-Raman spectroscopy, and high-resolution x-ray diffraction ͑HRXRD͒ are utilized as complementary, independent stress characterization tools for a range of strained Si samples doped by low energy ͑2 keV͒ Sb ion implantation. Following dopant implantation, good agreement is found between the magnitudes of strain measured by the two techniques. However, following dopant activation by annealing, strain relaxation is detected by HRXRD but not by micro-Raman. This discrepancy mainly arises from an anomalous redshift in the Si Raman peak position originating from the high levels of doping achieved in the samples. This has serious implications for the use of micro-Raman spectroscopy for strain characterization of highly doped strained Si complementary metal-oxide semiconductor devices and structures therein. We find a direct correlation between the Si Raman shift and peak carrier concentration measured by the differential Hall technique, which indicates that UV micro-Raman may become a useful tool for nondestructive dopant characterization for ultrashallow junctions in these Si-based materials. The enhancement of carrier mobilities through the introduction of strain in the channel region of metal-oxide semiconductor field effect transistors is an important option in order to maintain historical complementary metal-oxide semiconductor ͑CMOS͒ performance trends. 1 The production of ultrashallow junctions for the source/drain extension region using low energy ion implantation will be required for future CMOS devices. Biaxial tensile strain reduces the sheet resistance ͑R S ͒ of highly doped n type layers created by As or Sb implantation. The effect can be stronger for Sb, when R s lowering results not only from strain enhanced mobility, but also from an improvement in Sb metastable solubility in the presence of strain. 2 This makes Sb an interesting alternative to As for ultrashallow junctions in strain-engineered CMOS devices. Since an early study by Anastassakis et al., 3 Raman scattering has been widely used as a strain characterization technique in the semiconductor industry 4-6 and is often utilized for strain metrology in strained Si films. 7,8 Our results show that there are practical difficulties associated with the use of micro-Raman as a strain characterization technique for highly doped ultrashallow junction Si CMOS device structures.Experiments were performed on two types of tensilestrained Si wafers each grown on Si 1−x Ge x relaxed buffer layers with x = 0.2 and x = 0.17, and strained Si thicknesses of 43 and 17.5 nm, respectively. Each wafer was implanted with a 2 keV Sb ion dose of between 1 ϫ 10 14 and 1 ϫ 10 15 cm −2 creating a junction at a depth of around 10 nm.Nominally unstrained control samples were prepared using conventional p-type Si wafers for comparison. The implanted dose was confirmed by medium-energy ion scattering ͑MEIS͒. Dopant activation was achieved by rapid thermal annealing ͑RTA͒ wafer pieces for 10 s in N 2 in the range of 600-800°C. Room ...

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“…Systematic studies of SSOI structures by X-ray topography, Raman scattering, atomic force microscopy and cross-sectional high-resolution TEM [18,19] have been carried out, and most of the references indicate that the strain generated by lattice mismatches between SiGe and silicon layer is not affected by further processing such as transferring or annealing of thin silicon films [2,20]. Coherent X-ray diffractive imaging studies on SSOI samples are planned in the near future to obtain a better understanding of the distribution and evolution of strains caused by lattice mismatches between crystals and the causal stresses or pressure.…”

Section: Discussion and Future Outlookmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structural inhomogeneity in silicon-on-insulator probed with coherent X-ray diffraction

Shi¹,

Xiong

Huang

et al. 2010

Zeitschrift Für Kristallographie

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Abstract. We report our research on X-ray micro-beam diffraction and coherent X-ray diffractive imaging techniques to study structural inhomogeneities in Silicon-On-Insulator continuous plain wafers. Inhomogeneities were measured quantitatively and attributed to limitations of the manufacturing process. 3-dimensional image reconstructions were performed by using our Error-Reduction and Hybrid-Input-Output iterative algorithms. These revealed images of the focussed X-ray beam passing through the active layer of the wafer.

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The Crystallographic Properties of Strained Silicon Measured by X-Ray Diffraction

Cited by 31 publications

References 28 publications

Misfit strain relaxation and dislocation formation in supercritical strained silicon on virtual substrates

Misfit strain relaxation and dislocation formation in supercritical strained silicon on virtual substrates

Constraints on micro-Raman strain metrology for highly doped strained Si materials

Structural inhomogeneity in silicon-on-insulator probed with coherent X-ray diffraction

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