Methods for manufacturing compound-material wafers and for recycling used donor substrates

A method for fabricating a compound-material wafer from an initial donor substrate and a handle substrate which comprises:

• transferring a layer from the initial donor substrate onto the handle substrate thereby fabricating a compound-material wafer and providing a remainder donor substrate, and
• applying at least one thermal treatment comprising a rapid thermal oxidation step performed in an oxygen containing atmosphere with the thermal oxidation step configured to generate a temperature rise of at least 20° C./sec to reduce oxygen precipitates or nuclei in the remainder donor substrate to facilitate its re-use in subsequent fabricating steps while reducing crystalline defects in the subsequent layers to be transferred, wherein the thermal treatment is applied to the remainder donor substrate after transferring the layer to facilitate recycling of the remainder donor substrate.

In a method for recycling a remainder donor substrate from which one or more layers have been transferred during fabrication of one or more compound-material wafers, the improvement which comprises applying at least one rapid thermal treatment configured to generate a temperature rise of at least 20° C./sec to reduce oxygen precipitates or nuclei in the remainder donor wafer to facilitate re-use in subsequent fabrication steps while reducing crystalline defects in the layer to be transferred, and reusing the thermally-treated remainder donor substrate for fabrication of one or more additional compound-material wafers.