Low-temperature growth of silicon-boron layer as solid diffusion source for polysilicon contacted p+-n shallow junction

A new material, Si-B, is proposed as a solid diffusion source for fabrication of poly-Si contacted p⁺-n shallow junctions. The junction depth of the Si-B source diode has been measured and compared with that of a BF₂⁺-implanted poly-Si source diode. It was found that the Si-B source diode had a much shallower junction and was less sensitive to thermal budget than the BF₂⁺ source diode. This was attributed to the smaller surface concentration and diffusivity of boron in the silicon in Si-B source diodes. Regarding electrical characteristics of diodes with a junction depth over 500 Å, a forward ideality factor of better than 1.01 over 8 decades and a reverse-current density lower than 0.5 nA/cm² at -5 V were obtained. As the junction depth shrank to 300 Å, the ideality factor and reverse current density of diodes increased slightly to 1.05 and 1.16 nA/cm², respectively. These results demonstrated that a uniform ultrashallow p⁺-n junction can be obtained by using a thin Si-B layer as a diffusion source