Rapid thermal annealing and titanium silicide formation

Titanium silcides have been formed on monocrystalline (111) silicon substrates by rapid thermal annealing (RTA) of Ti layers deposited on Si at 700–800 °C for 1 to 240 s. The phase composition is dependent on the annealing temperature and time: at 700° and 750 °C for short annealing, TiSi and TiSi₂ are observed. At 800 °C and by increasing the exposure time at 700 ° and 750 °C, only TiSi₂ is detected. The growth of the total silicide thickness is found to be faster for RTA than for conventional furnace annealing and governed by two different mechanisms depending on the phases formed: in the range 700–750 °C, and 750–800 °C, activation-energy values of 2.6 ± 0.2 and 1.5 ±0.2 eV are found, respectively.For a thin deposited Ti layer (< 100 nm), the whole Ti is finally transformed into TiSi₂ with 20@ cm resistivity. For thicker Ti thicknesses, titanium oxide stops the reaction.     

Preparation of size controllable copper nanocrystals for nonvolatile memory applications

A method of fabricating Cu nanocrystals embedded in SiO2 dielectric film for nonvolatile memory applications by magnetron sputtering is introduced in this paper. The average size and distribution density of Cu nanocrystal grains are controlled by adjusting experimental parameters. The relationship between nanocrystal floating gate micro-structure and its charge storage capability is also discussed theoretically.     

Formation of palladium silicide by rapid thermal annealing

The formation of palladium silicide Pd₂Si by rapid thermal annealing of Pd layers on silicon has been studied as a function of annealing time (1–60s) in the temperature range 350–500 °C. It is shown that the results found for conventional furnace annealing (long duration, low temperature) can be extrapolated for rapid thermal annealing (shorter time, higher temperature) when taking into account the exact time dependence of the short temperature cycle. The growth rate is essentially diffusion limited and the activation energy is close to 1.1±0.1 eV. Silicide resistivity of about 30–40 cm was obtained for 200–400 nm thick Pd₂Si layers formed at 400 °C for a few seconds.     

Epitaxial nickel and cobalt suicide formation by rapid thermal annealing

Thin films of epitaxial NiSi₂ and CoSi₂ were formed by short-duration incoherent light exposure of evaporated Ni or Co films on <111> Si single crystals. The crystalline quality of these suicides is comparable to what has been obtained for long-duration furnace annealed suicides, as deduced from channeling measurements. NiSi₂ is of high crystalline quality at all temperatures at which it is formed whereas the CoSi₂ films recrystallize at a temperature of 980°C.     

Rapid thermal annealing of ITO films

Tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) films with 200 nm thickness were deposited on glass substrates by DC magnetron sputtering at room temperature. And they were annealed by rapid thermal annealing (RTA) method in vacuum ambient at different temperature for 60 s. The effect of annealing temperature on the structural, electrical and optical properties of ITO films was investigated. As the RTA temperature increases, the resistivity of ITO films decreases dramatically, and the transmittance in the visible region increases obviously. The ITO film annealed at 600 °C by RTA in vacuum shows a resistivity of 1.6 × 10⁻⁴ Ω cm and a transmittance of 92%.     

Evolution of epitaxial titanium silicide nanocrystals as a function of growth method and annealing treatments

Titanium silicide grows on silicon in a form of discontinuous layers, which is the most serious obstacle to the formation of high-quality epilayers for VLSI applications. At the same time, nanometric dimensions of the epitaxial silicide islands attract interest as quantum nanostructures. However, for this purpose, nanocrystals in a self-assembled array have to be defect-free, and exhibit high shape and size uniformity. In this work titanium silicide was grown on Si(1 1 1) substrates by reactive deposition epitaxy and by solid-phase epitaxy. Since the reaction and phase-formation kinetics depend on the growth method, accordingly different lattice matching and facet energies may result in different morphological shapes of the nanocrystals. Nanocrystals from reaction in a solid-state could be characterized as highly non-uniform in both shape and size, and their evolution due to post-deposition anneals increased that non-uniformity even further. Relaxation of epitaxial mismatch strain by misfit dislocations could be inferred from a gradual reduction of the nanocrystal vertical aspect ratio and development of flat top facets out of the initially sharp conical crests, in accord with generalized Wulf-Kaishew theorem. On the other hand, the silicide nanocrystals formed by reactive deposition exhibited high uniformity and thermal stability. Significant strain relaxation, as could be judged by the nanocrystal flattening, took place only at temperatures in excess of 650 °C, followed by progressive nanocrystal coalescence. It thus could be inferred, that better titanium silicide nanocrystal arrays (in the sense of uniformity and stability) are more easily obtained by reactive deposition epitaxy than by solid-phase epitaxy. While terminal, stable C54-TiSi₂ phase, did eventually form in the epilayers in both methods, different evolution pathways were manifested by different respective morphologies and orientations even in this final state.     

Low voltage program-erasable Pd-Al_2O_3-Si capacitors with Ru nanocrystals for nonvolatile memory application

Pd-Al2O3-Si capacitors with Ru nanocrystals are fabricated and electrically characterized for nonvolatile memory application.While keeping the entire insulator Al2O3thickness fixed,the memory window has a strong dependence on the tunneling layer thickness under low operating voltages,whereas it has weak dependence under high operating voltages.As for the optimal configuration comprised of 6-nm tunneling layer and 22-nm blocking layer,the resulting memory window increases from 1.5 V to 5.3 V with bias pulse increasing from 10 5s to 10 2s under±7 V.A ten-year memory window as large as 5.2 V is extrapolated at room temperature after±8 V/1 ms programming/erasing pulses.     

Rapid thermal annealing of high dose arsenic-implanted silicon

A model for rapid thermal annealing of high dose arsenic-implanted silicon layers is proposed. The kinetics of arsenic clustering was taken into account. Assuming that all arsenic is initially electrically active, the clustering rate is found to be enhanced during the early stage of annealing in comparison with results reported for conventional furnace tempering [1]. An influence of a low temperature preannealing on the diffusion behaviour of arsenic has not been observed.     

Bionanodot monolayer array fabrication for nonvolatile memory application

A polyelectrolyte thin film which was simply spin-coated on a substrate showed the high-density adsorption of bionanodot-accommodated ferritins through electrostatic interaction. Solution pH adjustment facilitated the control of adsorption density to a value grater than 80% of the theoretical maximum density. The formed polyelectrolyte film was very thin and vulnerable like protein, therefore, only the array with densely adsorbed bionanodot was left on the substrate after organic component removal. The floating nanodot gate type MOS capacitor fabricated with this bionanodot array showed a memory effect, and no negative influences of polymer such as carrier trapping on the capacitance-voltage characteristics was observed.     

Capacitance characteristics of metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitors with a single layer of embedded nickel nanoparticles for the application of nonvolatile memory

This paper reports that metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) capacitors with a single layer of Ni nanoparticles were successfully fabricated by using electron-beam evaporation and rapid thermal annealing for application to nonvolatile memory. Experimental scanning electron microscopy images showed that Ni nanoparticles of about 5~nm in diameter were clearly embedded in the SiO₂ layer on p-type Si (100). Capacitance--voltage measurements of the MOS capacitor show large flat-band voltage shifts of 1.8~V, which indicate the presence of charge storage in the nickel nanoparticles. In addition, the charge-retention characteristics of MOS capacitors with Ni nanoparticles were investigated by using capacitance--time measurements. The results showed that there was a decay of the capacitance embedded with Ni nanoparticles for an electron charge after 10$^{4}$~s. But only a slight decay of the capacitance originating from hole charging was observed. The present results indicate that this technique is promising for the efficient formation or insertion of metal nanoparticles inside MOS structures.     

Synthesis of Ge nanocrystals by atom beam sputtering and subsequent rapid thermal annealing

Ge nanocrystals embedded in an SiO₂ matrix were prepared by the atom beam co-sputtering (ABS) method from a composite target of Ge and SiO₂. The as-deposited films were rapid thermally annealed at the temperatures 700 and 800 °C in nitrogen ambience. The structure of the films was evaluated by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy. XRD results reveal that as-deposited films are amorphous in nature whereas annealed samples show crystalline nature. Raman scattering spectra showed a peak of Ge–Ge vibrational mode shifted downwards to 297 cm^?1, presumably caused by quantum confinement of phonons in the Ge nanocrystals. Rutherford backscattering spectrometry has been used to measure the thickness and Ge composition of the composite films. Size variation of Ge nanocrystals with annealing temperature has been discussed. The advantages of ABS over other methods are highlighted.     

Tailoring of nickel silicide contacts on silicon carbide

Co-deposition technique by means of simultaneous ion beam sputtering of nickel and silicon onto SiC was performed for tailoring of Ni-silicide/SiC contacts. The prepared samples were analysed by means of XRD and XPS in order to obtain information about the surface and interface chemistry. Depth profiling was used in order to analyse in-depth information and chemical distribution of the specimens. XRD results showed that the main phase formed is Ni₂Si. The XPS analysis confirmed the formation of the silicide on the surface and showed details about the chemical composition of the layer and layer/substrate interface. Moreover, the XPS depth profiles with detailed analysis of XPS peaks suggested that tailoring of C distribution could be monitored by the co-deposition technique employed.     

Rapid thermal annealing of electrically-active defects in virgin and implanted silicon

Chemical etching of single-crystalline (100)Si induced by pulsed laser irradiation at 308, 423, and 583 nm has been investigated as a function of the laser fluence and C1₂ pressure. Without laser-induced surface melting, etching requires Cl radicals which are produced only at laser wavelengths below 500 nm. With low laser fluences ((308 nm)<100 mJ/cm²) etching is non-thermal and based on direct interactions between photocarriers and Cl radicals. For fluences which induce surface melting ((308 nm)>440 mJ/cm²) etching is thermally activated. In the intermediate region both thermal and non-thermal mechanisms contribute to the etch rate.     

Engineering of tunnel barrier for highly integrated nonvolatile memory applications

In this paper, the engineered tunnel barrier technology is introduced by using the engineered tunnel barrier of VARIOT type (SiO₂/Si₃N₄/SiO₂) and CRESTED type (Si₃N₄/SiO₂/Si₃N₄) with Si₃N₄ and high-k HfO₂ layers as charge trapping layers, respectively. In addition, the high-k stacked VARIOT type of SiO₂/HfO₂/Al₂O₃ and Al₂O₃/HfO₂/Al₂O₃ are compared with O/N/O tunnel barrier memory. As a result, the engineered tunnel barrier memory device showed excellent memory characteristics compared to the single SiO₂ tunnel barrier memory device, such as very high P/E (program/erase) speed, good retention time and no degradation in endurance characteristics.     

硅基硒纳米颗粒的发光特性研究

由于尺寸缩小引起的量子效应, 硒(Se) 材料的低维纳米结构具有更高的光响应和低的阈值激射等特性, 因此成为纳米电子与纳米光电子器件领域一个重要的研究方向. 本文通过对非晶硒薄膜的快速热退火来制备硒纳米颗粒, 退火温度在100–180℃之间时, 结晶后的硒纳米颗粒均为三角晶体结构, 其颗粒尺寸随退火温度的增加而线性增大. 光致发光谱测试发现三个发光峰, 分别位于1.4eV, 1.7eV和1.83eV. 研究发现位于1.4eV处的发光峰来源于非晶硒缺陷发光, 位于1.83eV处的发光峰来源于晶体硒的带带跃迁发光; 而位于1.7eV处的发光峰强度随激发功率增强而指数增大, 且向短波长移动, 该发光峰应该来源于非晶硒与硒纳米颗粒界面处的施主-受主对复合发光. 关键词： 硅基 硒纳米颗粒 光致发光 施主-受主对     

Nanoparticle process formation in zinc implanted silicon with followed thermal annealing

Results of temperature treatment effect on near surface layer properties of Zn ion implanted Si substrate are presented. Radiation induced point defects and Zn in depth profile was studied by Rutherford back scattering (RBS) method with use of channeling technique. Topology of substrate surface was studied by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scaning electron microscope (SEM). Phase composition of samples was test by x-ray diffraction in grazing geometry.