The investigation of boron-doped silicon using atom probe tomography

Blavette, D.; Cadel, E.; Cojocaru-Mirédin, O.; Déconihout, B.

doi:10.1088/1757-899x/7/1/012004

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Laser-assisted APT (La-APT) is now widely used for all materials, especially for semiconductors or less conductive materials (Kambham et al, 2011(Kambham et al, , 2013Tu et al, 2017;Giddings et al, 2018;Martin et al, 2018), due to its higher success rate and improved mass resolution compared with the voltage mode APT (Blavette et al, 2010;Kelly et al, 2014). In this case, the evaporation probabilities of the atoms are enhanced by a temporary increase in thermal energy linked to the duration of the laser pulse.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Bottom-Up Volume Reconstruction Method for Atom Probe Tomography

Yang

Cools

Bogdanowicz

et al. 2022

Microscopy and Microanalysis

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This paper describes a reconstruction method for atom probe tomography based on a bottom-up approach accounting for (i) the final tip morphology (which is frequently induced by inhomogeneous evaporation probabilities across the tip surface due to laser absorption, heat diffusion effects, and inhomogeneous material properties), (ii) the limited (and changing) field of view, and (iii) the detector efficiency. The reconstruction starts from the final tip morphology and reverses the evaporation sequence through the pseudo-deposition of defined small reconstruction volumes, which are then stacked together to create the full three-dimensional (3D) tip. The subdivision in small reconstruction volumes allows the scheme to account for the changing tip shape and field of view as evaporation proceeds. Atoms within the same small reconstruction volume are reconstructed at once by placing atoms back onto their possible lattice sites through a trajectory-matching process involving simulated and experimental hit maps. As the ejected ion trajectories are simulated using detailed electrostatic modeling inside the chamber, no simplifications have been imposed on the shape of the trajectories, projection laws, or tip surface. We demonstrate the superior performance of our approach over the conventional reconstruction method (Bas) for an asymmetrical tip shape.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Bottom-Up Volume Reconstruction Method for Atom Probe Tomography

Yang

Cools

Bogdanowicz

et al. 2022

Microscopy and Microanalysis

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“…Hence, atom probe tomography (APT) measurements have been performed in this study for detection and quantification of such small boron clusters to understand the emitter properties. APT is an instrument able to detect and quantify B clusters in Si and has been used in previous studies to image and analyze distribution of B atoms in Si . Recent advances in APT enable this technique to successfully analyze poor conducting materials like semiconductors and insulators by making use of laser pulses to field evaporate the specimen .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of boron clustering on the emitter quality of implanted silicon solar cells: an atom probe tomography study

Raghuwanshi

Lanterne

Perchec

et al. 2015

Progress in Photovoltaics

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The use of ion implantation doping instead of the standard gaseous diffusion is a promising way to simplify the fabrication process of silicon solar cells. However, difficulties to form high-quality boron (B) implanted emitters are encountered when implantation doses suitable for the emitter formation are used. This is due to a more or less complete activation of Boron after thermal annealing. To have a better insight into the actual state of the B distributions, we analyze three different B emitters prepared on textured Si wafers: (1) a BCl 3 diffused emitter and two B implanted emitters (fixed dose) annealed at (2) 950°C and at (3) 1050°C (less than an hour). Our investigations are in particular based on atom probe tomography, a technique able to explore 3D atomic distribution inside a material at nanometer scale. Atom probe tomography is employed here to characterize B atomic distribution inside textured Si solar cell emitters and to quantify clustering of B atoms. Here, we show that implanted emitters annealed at 950°C present maximum clusters due to poor solubility at lower temperature and also highest emitter saturation current density (J 0e = 1000 fA/cm 2 ). Increasing the annealing temperature results in greatly improved J 0e (131 fA/cm 2 ) due to higher solubility and a consequently lower number of clusters. BCl 3 diffused emitters do not contain any B clusters and presented the best emitter quality. From our results, we conclude that clustering of B atoms is the main reason behind higher J 0e in the implanted boron emitters and hence degraded emitter quality.

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“…In-line and near-line measurements not only save cost and time but minimize risk of contaminating the sample by handling and thus altering the measurement, but at some cost to using those areas of the wafer to complete the full device. Dopant analysis in bulk semiconductors such as silicon is a critical need in the semiconductor industry and a long-standing application for APT [1][2][3]. APT provides the high-resolution concentration measurements localized to extremely small regions of interest, appropriate for failure analysis of a single device or routine sampling at low concentrations.…”

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confidence: 99%