Influence of 16O, 12C, 14N, and noble gases on the crystallization of amorphous Si layers

Abstract

Channeling effect measurements have been used to study the effect of impurities on the epitaxial regrowth of amorphous silicon layers on single-crystal silicon. Implantation was used to form the amorphous layers and also to introduce the impurities 12C, 14N, 16O, 20Ne, 40A, and 84Kr. For 16O implants, the growth rate at 550 °C depended on the 16O concentration and at the level of 0.5 at.% the rate was reduced from about 90 to about 10 Å/min. For similar atomic concentrations of 14N, the rate was comparable to the 16O case. For comparable concentrations of 12C, the regrowth rate was found to be three times higher than for that of the 16O case. Noble gas ions are also found to retard the growth rate of the amorphous layers. For 40Ar at about the 0.5-at.% level, the regrowth rate is appreciably slower than even that for the 16O case.