Electrically active defects in surface pre-amorphized Si under rapid thermal anneal and their removal by concurrent titanium silicidation

The interstitial-type nature of electrically active defects observed in surface pre-amorphized and subsequently annealed p-type Si is established by comparing the thermal evolution of electrically active defects for rapid thermal anneals (RTA) with/without titanium films. Detailed analyses of the deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) and transmission electron microscopy results suggest that some of these defects are small interstitial clusters. The results of this study also suggest that the release of self-interstitials from EOR extended defects and their subsequent diffusion into bulk are involved in the formation of the hole trap levels observed after high temperature RTA anneals. The observation of the complete elimination of the implantation-induced electrically active defects by concurrent RTA Ti-silicidation should be of interest to silicon microelectronic technology since it demonstrates the possibility of eliminating implantation induced defects using low thermal budget. © 1999 American Institute of Physics.