Intermittent ultraviolet irradiation for silicon selective epitaxial growth

Abstract
We present a cyclic process of Si growth followed by ultraviolet (UV) irradiation which suppresses Si nucleation on the SiO2 surface. We grew Si using low pressure chemical vapor deposition with a Si2H6/H2 gas system without chlorine at 700 and 650 °C. Incubation period is determined using Auger electron spectroscopy as the time for which there is less than 0.015 coverage of Si on SiO2. We show that intermittent UV irradiation within the incubation period suppresses Si nucleation on the SiO2 surface. We believe the growth/UV‐irradiation cyclic process is useful for preparing a thick Si selective epitaxial growth layer.