Formation and treatment of epitaxial layer containing silicon and carbon
AssigneeApplied Materials, Inc.
InventorsYonah Cho, Yihwan Kim
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Abstract
Methods for formation and treatment of epitaxial layers containing silicon and carbon are disclosed. Treatment converts interstitial carbon to substitutional carbon in the epitaxial layer, according to one or more embodiments. Specific embodiments pertain to the formation and treatment of epitaxial layers in semiconductor devices, for example, Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (MOSFET) devices. In specific embodiments, the treatment of the epitaxial layer involves annealing for short periods of time, for example, by laser annealing, millisecond annealing, rapid thermal annealing, spike annealing and combinations thereof. Embodiments include amorphization of at least a portion of the epitaxial layer containing silicon and carbon.
Claims22
A method of treating a Si:C epitaxial layer on a substrate comprising:
- providing a substrate having an epitaxial layer containing carbon and silicon deposited on the substrate, the carbon including substitutional carbon at a first integrated dose;
- ion implanting the epitaxial layer, causing a loss in substitutional carbon to a second integrated dose below the first integrated dose;
- and
- annealing the substrate and epitaxial layer at a temperature from about 1000° C. to about 1350° C. for a time of less than about 900 milliseconds to increase substitutional carbon from the second integrated dose to at least about 90% of the first integrated dose.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.