Ion Implantation and Misfit Dislocation Formation in P/P+Silicon

We determined that self implantation of pseudomorphically strained silicon epitaxial layers greatly attenuates strain relaxation. We employed highly boron doped 150 mm diameter silicon with a nominally un-doped, 2.5 μm thick epitaxial layer (p/p+). The compressively strained layer (mismatch ≈ 1.5 × 10 -4 ) showed inhomogeneous relaxation after epitaxial growth, with misfits forming only near the wafer periphery. High temperature rapid thermal annealing was employed after ion implantation to study misfit dislocation nucleation and glide. Our results suggest that low dose ion implantation has a potential to reduce misfit dislocation propagation and nucleation in epitaxial thin films.