Quantum doping method and use in fabrication of nanoscale electronic devices
OwnerAnatoly Feygensoninventor
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Abstract
A novel doping technology for semiconductor wafers has been developed, referred to as a “quantum doping” process that permits the deposition of only a fixed, controlled number of atoms in the form of a monolayer in a substitutional condition where only unterminated surface bonds react with the dopant, thus depositing only a number of atoms equal to the atomic surface density of the substrate material. This technique results in providing a “quantized” set of possible dopant concentration values that depend only on the additional number of layers of substrate material formed over the single layer of dopant atoms.
Claims12
A method of performing controlled doping of a semiconductor material, the method performed in a reaction chamber and comprising the steps of:
- a) providing a substrate of a semiconductor material of a predetermined crystallographic orientation and having a top major surface;
- b) atomically cleaning the top major surface of the substrate to remove impurities and expose a fixed number of unterminated bonds of surface atoms as controlled by the predetermined crystallographic orientation and surface area of the top major surface, creating a surface with a predetermined atomic surface density defined by the crystallographic orientation and a fixed number of unterminated bonds;
- c) introducing gas precursors of a dopant material at a relatively low temperature, suspending further processing until thermal equilibrium is obtained;
- d) rapidly elevating a temperature within the reaction chamber to a level sufficient to cause atoms of the dopant material to chemisorb with the top surface of the semiconductor material and bond to the fixed number of unterminated bonds in a substitutional bonding formation in a self-limiting deposition process, creating a single layer of dopant atoms of the same atomic surface density and leaving the same, fixed number of unterminated dopant bonds at the surface thereof;
- e) purging the reaction chamber of gas precursor effluent;
- f) introducing gas precursors of substrate material at a relatively low temperature, suspending further processing until thermal equilibrium is obtained;
- g) rapidly elevating a temperature within the reaction chamber to a level sufficient to cause atoms of the substrate material to bond to the fixed number of unterminated dopant bonds in a substitutional bonding formation in a self-limiting deposition process, creating a layer of semiconductor atoms with the same atomic surface density and the same fixed number of unterminated bonds;
- and
- h) repeating steps e) through g) to continue to deposit additional atomic layers of substrate material sufficient to create a predetermined dopant density, defined by the atomic surface density and the number N of additional atomic layers of substrate material.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.