Low-temperature i n s i t u surface cleaning of oxide-patterned wafers by Ar/H2 plasma sputter
- 1 November 1990
- journal article
- conference paper
- Published by AIP Publishing in Journal of Applied Physics
- Vol. 68 (9) , 4681-4693
- https://doi.org/10.1063/1.346180
Abstract
This paper presents the investigation of low‐temperature in situ surface cleaning of oxide‐patterned wafers by an Ar/H2 plasma prior to the epitaxial growth on exposed silicon windows. Ar/H2 plasma sputter cleaning was carried out at 2.5 or 20‐W rf power and a susceptor dc bias from 100 down to 0 V. Epitaxial layers were grown immediately after the in situ surface cleaning by ultralow‐pressure chemical vapor deposition from SiH4/H2 in a high‐vacuum system (base pressure, 10−7 Torr). Process temperatures were varied from 800 down to 500 °C. The epitaxial films were characterized by cross‐sectional transmission electron microscopy, secondary‐ion‐mass spectroscopy, Nomarski optical microscopy, and ion channeling Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy. It was found that a highly structural epitaxial layer can be grown down to 600 °C and an epitaxial layer can be grown at 500 °C by utilizing the preepitaxial in situ Ar/H2 plasma sputter cleaning.This publication has 15 references indexed in Scilit:
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