We developed an apparatus for producing high-density hydrogen plasma. The atomic hydrogen density was 3.1 × 10 21 m −3 at a pressure of 30 Pa, a microwave power of 1000 W, and a hydrogen gas flow rate of 10 sccm. We confirmed that the temperatures of transition-metal films increased to above 800˚C within 5 s when they were exposed to hydrogen plasma formed using the apparatus. We applied this phenomenon to the selective heat treatment of nickel films deposited on silicon wafers and formed nickel silicide electrodes. We found that this heat phenomenon automatically stopped after the nickel slicidation reaction finished. To utilize this method, we can perform the nickel silicidation process without heating the other areas such as channel regions and improve the reliability of silicon ultralarge-scale integration devices.

Strain-relaxed SiGe is an attractive material for use as a substrate of strained Si, in which carrier mobility is higher than that of bulk Si. The concept of this study is the use of porous Si as a sponge like substrate so that a SiGe lattice can relax without introducing dislocations. We produced porous Si specimens by electrochemical anodization and annealed them under a H 2 atmosphere. Then, SiGe thin films were grown by gas-source molecular beam epitaxy. We observed the microstructure of the specimens using transmission electron microscopy. The result showed that we succeeded in producing a single-crystal continuous Si 0.73 Ge 0.27 film with a 10% relaxation ratio and a low dislocation density on porous Si.