Wafer-scale SiC rich nano-coating layer by Ar+ and Xe+ ion mixing

Ion irradiation of interfaces causes intermixing of the adjacent regions, which leads to compound formation in certain cases. With the aim of building, some nm thick protective coating at ambient temperature, C/Si/C/Si/C/Si substrate samples were irradiated with Ar+, Xe+, and Ga+ ions in the energy and fluence ranges of 20–200keV and 1–3×1016ioncm−2, respectively. The effect of ion irradiation was studied by Auger electron spectroscopy depth profiling and cross sectional transmission electron microscopy. All ion irradiations produced SiC rich regions the thickness of which, being some nm, could be tailored by changing the ion irradiation conditions. The chemical resistance of the SiC rich layer has been tested by polysilicon etchant. Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry (RBS) analysis showed that etching rate of the SiC rich region was orders of magnitude lower than that of polysilicon on the whole irradiated area. It was also shown that Transport of Ions in Dynamic (TRIDYN) simulation combined with a simple compound formation rule provides a fair description of the resultant SiC distributions. Thus, it is possible to design and fabricate wafer-scale SiC for a given sample architecture by “TRIDYN simulation assisted” ion irradiation.