Comprehensive modeling of ion-implant amorphization in silicon

A physically based model has been developed to simulate the ion-implant induced damage accumulation up to amorphization in silicon. Based on damage structures known as amorphous pockets (AP), which are three-dimensional, irregularly shaped agglomerates of interstitials (I) and vacancies (V) surrounded by crystalline silicon, the model is able to reproduce a wide range of experimental observations of damage accumulation and amorphization with interdependent implantation parameters. Instead of recrystallizing the Iʹs and Vʹs instantaneously, the recrystallization rate of an AP containing nI and mV is a function of its effective size, defined as min(n, m), irrespective of its internal spatial configuration. The parameters used in the model were calibrated using the experimental silicon amorphous-crystalline transition temperature as a function of dose rate for C, Si, and Ge. The model is able to show the superlinear damage build-up with dose, the extent of amorphous layer and the superadditivity effect of polyatomic ions.