Effect of annealing conditions on precipitate and defect evolution in oxygen implanted SOI material

Summary form only given. The effects of annealing temperature, time, and ambient on the evolution of defects and precipitates in the superficial silicon layer in SIMOX material are discussed. Precipitates and defects were studied with various electron microscopy techniques, including high-resolution imaging. Annealing temperatures from 1250°C to 1300°C for two hours in a nitrogen ambient produced qualitatively the same general structure in the samples. This consisted of a precipitate-free upper region of the superficial layer and a high density of precipitates in the lower region of the layer. Dislocations frequently ran laterally between adjacent precipitates, but some dislocations also ran upward to the wafer surface from precipitates closer to the surface of the superficial layer. The buried layer had a waviness of about the same size as the precipitates