Rapid Thermal Treatment for Improving Thermal Processing Stability of Ar-Implanted Surface Passivated High-Resistivity Silicon

Abstract

This study improved the thermal processing stability of Si-based coplanar waveguides (CPW) through Ar ion implantation with rapid thermal annealing (RTA). Ar ion implantation damaged the surface layer of the high-resistivity silicon substrate, which decreased attenuation of the CPW line. However, the damaged layer recrystallized during a high temperature process, which caused thermal processing instability. A RTA process was performed to retard the epitaxial regrowth from the substrate, this improved thermal processing stability and decreased dc-voltage dependence of the attenuation of the CPW line. These improved properties were found to be due to the RTA process retaining more bulk traps within the damaged layer.Index Terms-Coplanar waveguide (CPW), microwave loss, surface passivation, thermal processing stability, thermally-induced electrical instability.

Thin-Film layers with interfaces that reduce RF losses on High-Resistivity silicon substrates

“…While the bulk HRS substrate contains very few charge carriers, surface channels limit the performance. To suppress such parasitic conduction losses, several passivation techniques have been developed including argon implantation [1], poly- [2] or amorphous-Si deposition [3], and combinations with specially designed Rapid Thermal Processing (RTP) treatments [4] to improve thermal stability of the passivating layers. With these methods the charge carriers that gather at the Si interface in inversion or accumulation layers are forced to move in a layer of disordered Si that has very high resistivity.…”