Investigation of Sb diffusion in amorphous silicon

Abstract

Amorphous silicon materials and its alloys become extensively used in some technical applications involving large area of the microelectronic and optoelectronic devices.However, the amorphous-crystalline transition, segregation and diffusion processes still have numerous unanswered questions. In this work we study the Sb diffusion into an amorphous Si film by means of Secondary Neutral Mass Spectrometry (SNMS). Amorphous Si/Si 1-x Sb x /Si tri-layer samples with 5 at% antimony concentration were prepared by DC magnetron sputtering onto Si substrate at room temperature. Annealing of the samples were performed at different temperature in vacuum (p<10 -7 mbar) and 100 bar high purity (99.999%) Ar pressure. During annealing a rather slow mixing between the Sb-alloyed and the amorphous Si layers was observed. Supposing concentration independent diffusion, the evaluated diffusion coefficients are in the range of ~10 -21 m 2 s -1 at 823 K.

Electron‐Impact (EI) Secondary Neutral Mass Spectrometry (SNMS)

“…Recently, high -resolution depth profi ling with plasma SNMS was also used for the investigation of various electrodeposited thin -fi lm structures [57 -62] , Sb diffusion in amorphous silicon [63] , failure mechanisms at Ta and TaO diffusion barriers [64] , doped perovskites [62,65] , as well as for the evaluation of solid -state phases in Zn -Ni coatings and the quantitative detection of temperature -induced chemical state reactions for ohmic contacts in microelectronic devices based on silicon carbide [66] .…”