Evaluation of back-side secondary ion mass spectrometry for boron diffusion in silicon and silicon-on-insulator substrates J. Appl. Phys. 96, 3692 (2004); 10.1063/1.1782959 Secondary ion mass spectrometry characterization of source/drain junctions for strained silicon channel metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors Approach to the characterization of through-oxide boron implantation by secondary ion mass spectrometry High drive-in temperature during dopant activation of p ϩ -poly metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors causes boron penetration through the thin gate oxide, which degrades the device performance. Conventional secondary ion mass spectrometry ͑SIMS͒ depth profiling is unable to accurately analyze boron penetration under rapid thermal annealing conditions due to ion knock-on and mixing effects. With the development of backside SIMS depth profiling technique using SOI wafers ͓Yeo et al., Surf. Interface Anal. 33, 373 ͑2002͒; Runsheim et al., J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 20, 448 ͑2002͔͒, quantification of the amount of boron penetration becomes possible. In this article, boron penetration through decoupled plasma nitridation silicon dioxide was studied by performing both front and backside depth profiling using 0.5 keV O 2 ϩ with oxygen flooding and 2 keV Cs ϩ primary ions at oblique incidence in a Cameca IMS-6f SIMS instrument.