Silicon epitaxy by low-energy plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition

Abstract

Low temperature in situ boron doped Si epitaxial growth by ultrahigh vacuum electron cyclotron resonance chemical vapor deposition Plasma enhanced selective area microcrystalline silicon deposition on hydrogenated amorphous silicon: Surface modification for controlled nucleation Investigation of substrate-dependent nucleation of plasma-deposited microcrystalline silicon on glass and silicon substrates using atomic force microscopy A new technique for semiconductor epitaxy at low substrate temperatures is presented, called low-energy dc plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The method has been applied to Si homoepitaxy at substrate temperatures between 400 and 600°C and growth rates between 0.1 and 1 nm/s, using silane as the reactive gas. The quality of the Si films has been examined by reflection high-energy electron diffraction, scanning tunneling microscopy, cross-section transmission electron microscopy, and high-resolution x-ray diffraction. Two effects have been identified to lead to the formation of stacking faults after an initial layer of defect-free growth: ͑1͒ substrate bombardment by ions with energies in excess of 15 eV, and ͑2͒ hydrogen adsorption limiting the surface mobility of Si atoms and silane radicals. Both result in the accumulation of surface roughness, facilitating the nucleation of stacking faults when the roughness reaches a critical level. Defect introduction can be eliminated effectively by biasing the substrate during growth and by decreasing the hydrogen coverage, either by admixing small amounts of germane to the silane or by using a sufficiently high plasma density.

Disentangling nonradiative recombination processes in Ge micro-crystals on Si substrates

“…9,14,15 In the quest to achieve Ge-based architectures as lossless optical components and to resolve the subtleties of the carrier dynamics, we exploit the out-of-equilibrium growth of Ge on deeply patterned Si substrates. 16 Figure 1(a) demonstrates a scanning electron microscope micrograph of as-grown lm-scale crystals developed by depositing 8 lm of Ge at 550 C by low-energy plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition 17 onto 2 Â 2 lm 2 Si pillars. Such pedestals were separated by 8-lm-deep and 3-lm-wide trenches patterned onto (001) substrates by optical lithography and reactive ion etching.…”

Raman Spectroscopy for the Analysis οf Temperature-Dependent Plastic Relaxation οf SiGe Layers

“…A series of Si 0.6 Ge 0.4 /Si(100) graded buffers were grown by low energy plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (LEPECVD) [18] at a rate of 5-10 nm s…”

Group-IV midinfrared plasmonics

“…20,21 In an LEPECVD reactor, as sketched in Fig. 1(a), the wafer is exposed to a high intensity plasma, leading to growth rates of several nanometers per second through a very efficient decomposition of the reactive molecules.…”