Nature and Annealing Behavior of Disorders in Ion Implanted Silicon

A comprehensive review is given on the studies of the nature and low temperature(≈500°C) annealing behavior of disorders generated in silicon single crystal substrates during impurity ion implantation. Interaction of disorders and impurity atoms during annealing treatment is analysed over each layer along ion trajectories. This is because the concentrations of both disorders and implanted impurity atoms have unique distribution profiles in the substrate. On the assumption that a carrier compensation center is left where the recovery of each implantation generated amorphous cluster occurs, it is found to be essential, for the electrical activation of implanted impurity atoms, that spatial overlapping of the amorphous clusters occurs. Excess vacancies generated during annealing from amorphous layers are thought to thought to contribute to the anomalous behavior of solid solubility of impurity atoms involved in regrown layers. A better understanding of the phenomena that govern implantation and subsequent annealing offered would open a way for new applications of implantation technology.