Improved production yield in silicon epitaxy by reducing pressure in mesoplasma chemical vapor deposition

Abstract

Epitaxial deposition rate and production yield of Si epitaxy have been improved by reducing the pressure during mesoplasma chemical vapor deposition to attain a rate of 490 nm/s and a yield of 60% at 3 Torr while maintaining a Hall mobility as high as 210 cm2·V−1·s−1. Decreasing the pressure increased the local density of excited atomic H in the plasma near the deposition region. This increased density potentially increased the instability of the Si–Cl gases and also promoted the impingement dynamics of the growth-precursor clusters, which were likely the cause of the improved production yield and film quality.

In situ annealing and high-rate silicon epitaxy on porous silicon by mesoplasma process

“…This phenomenon is considered to be due to H etching, because a large amount of atomic H is obtained under the mesoplasma condition and H atoms have a significant etching effect on Si. 16,18,19) In fact, the etching of the porous Si by H atoms can be evidenced from Figs. 1(e) and 1(f), that is, there are no obvious etching pores observed after Ar plasma exposure [ Fig.…”

“…[10][11][12][13][14][15][16] In this process, highrate and large-area Si epitaxy can be obtained by moving the substrate. 17) In addition, mesoplasma has a high number density of atomic hydrogen, 18,19) which is considered to be favorable for porous Si annealing. 20) In this study, therefore, we employed mesoplasma to investigate the annealing of porous Si and also the Si epitaxial growth on porous Si substrate.…”