Growth and electrical characteristics of palladium silicide contacts on dry-etched silicon surfacesDry etching results in the permeation of silicon by etching species; it also results in the better understood residue layer formation and near-surface lattice damage layer formation. The principal species permeating silicon during dry etching exposures is found to be hydrogen. Using doping deactivation as a marker, we study this permeation and show that hydrogen can permeate as much as 10 fl during etching, thereby modifying the electrical properties ofSi to that depth. We further demonstrate that this hydrogen permeation, at least in the case of p material, exhibits two distinct regions of behavior and two apparent diffusion coefficients. It is also shown that the doping deactivation anneals out differently in these two permeation regions.

Metal-oxygen bonding of the Ce-doped LaCoO3 system remains largely unexplored despite extensive studies on its magnetic properties. Here, we investigate the structure and local structure of nanoscale La1-xCexCoO3, with x = 0, 0.2, and 0.4, using the Rietveld refinement and synchrotron X-ray absorption techniques, complemented by topological analysis of experimental electron density and electron energy distribution. The Rietveld refinement results show that LaCoO3 subject to Ce addition is best interpretable by a model of cubic symmetry in contrast to the pristine LaCoO3, conventionally described by either a monoclinic model or a rhombohedral model. Ce4+/Co2+ are more evidently compatible dopants than Ce3+ for insertion into the main lattice. X-ray absorption data evidence the partially filled La 5d-band of the pristine LaCoO3 in accordance with the presence of La–O bonds with the shared-type atomic interaction. With increasing x, the increased Ce spectroscopic valence and enhanced La–O ionic bonding are noticeable. Characterization of the local structures around Co species also provides evidence to support the findings of the Rietveld refinement analysis.

No abstract