Material and electrical properties of ultra-shallow p+-n junctions formed by low-energy ion implantation and rapid thermal annealing

A study of low-energy ion implantation processes for the fabrication of ultrashallow p⁺-n junctions is presented. The resulting junctions are examined in terms of four key parameters: defect annihilation, junction depth, sheet resistance, and diode reverse leakage current. In the realm of very-low-energy ion implantation, Ge preamorphization is found to be largely ineffective at reducing junction depth, despite the fact that the as-implanted boron profiles are much shallower for preamorphized substrates than for crystalline substrates. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis of residual defects after rapid thermal annealing (RTA) reveals that the use of either a preamorphization implant or the implantation of BF₂ as a B source results in residual damage which requires higher RTA temperatures to be removed. A reasonable correlation is observed between residual defect density observed via TEM and junction leakage current. It is concluded that the key to an optimized low-energy implantation process for the formation of ultrashallow junctions appears to be the proper selection of preamorphization and annealing conditions relative to the dopant implant energy