Theoretical study of the laser annealing process in FinFET structures

Investigation of oxygen penetration during UV nanosecond laser annealing of silicon at high energy densities

“…As a consequence, oxygen atoms do not redistribute over the entire liquid layer during the melt. In contrast, the cumulative effect of 10 laser pulses enables the in-diffused oxygen to diffuse near the maximum melt depths, which were estimated by phase field simulations [22] as 450 nm, 1000 nm and 1600 nm at 4, 6 and 8 J/cm², respectively (cf. Fig.…”

3D Simulation for Melt Laser Anneal Integration in FinFET’s Contact

“…According to our simulation, the full melt of the a-Si:P on all Fin positions can be achieved at 0.51 J/cm 2 , leaving a comfortable margin of more than 0.05 J/cm 2 . This process window may be enlarged by using a polarized laser light to reduce the laser light coupling (i.e., the heat generation) in the RMG part [16]. Also, when the a-Si:P melts, the RMG part reached a peak temperature higher than 1420 K (the obtained absolute temperature may be inaccurate since bulk material properties are considered for the RMG thin films in our model, but the RMG part could reach 1700 to 2000 K in a few hundred ns timescale).…”

“…Moreover, nanometer scale effects such as optical coupling and phase change have to be considered together with micrometer scale thermal diffusion effects for microsecond scale duration (i.e., time to return to equilibrium) with nanosecond scale time resolution. In this work, we use a TCAD package (named LIAB: LASSE Innovation Application Booster) [16] overcoming these challenges to simulate the MLA process in 3D structures by a careful optimization of the numerical meshing strategy, adapted boundary conditions, and an adaptive time-stepping algorithm. Specifically, the incident laser wave comes from the top of the simulated structure and a constant temperature of 300 K is set at the lower boundary of the system (i.e., at the bottom of a 700 µm thick coarsely meshed Si substrate).…”

“…This structure was periodically repeated in simulation. The detailed setup of our simulation is explained elsewhere [16]. Physical characterizations such as Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis were performed after MLA.…”

Undoped SiGe material calibration for numerical nanosecond laser annealing simulations

“…Numerical simulations were performed using LIAB simulation software described in [8]. This tool solves selfconsistently the heat equation coupled to the time harmonic solution of Maxwell equation (UV laser light coupling), including temperature dependency of materials parameters and phase change (here using a phase field based approach [9]).…”