Anomalous Electrical Deactivation of Low Concentration Rapid Thermally Annealed Arsenic Implanted Silicon

Lattice location studies of rapid thermally annealed As implanted Si have revealed a previously unreported buried region of stable non-substitutional arsenic-interstitial defects. Profiling analysis indicates that As atoms within these complexes are electrically active. Dissolution of this defect band with increasing annealing time is shown to correlate with further decreases in electrical activation. These results suggest that diffusion and activation of ion implanted As concentrations beneath electrical solubility are mediated on RTA timescales by non-equilibrium implantation-induced point defect distributions.