Thermal annealing study on GaAs encapsulated by plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor-deposited SiOxNy

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Abstract
To avoid the thermal decomposition of the GaAs surface during the postimplanted annealing, a silicon oxynitride (SiOxNy) encapsulate layer grown by plasma‐enhanced chemical vapor deposition has been systematically studied. SiOxNy with the refraction index of 1.7–1.8 exhibited the best encapsulated performance after high‐temperature annealing. Using Raman spectroscopy, etch‐pit densities, photoluminescence, and Hall‐effect measurements, this composition of the encapsulate layer on GaAs possessed the lowest surface defect, the best thermal stability, and the highest electrical activity of the implanted dopant. Thermal conversion is present when SiO‐ and SiN‐ rich films are used and is tentatively attributed to the generation of Ga vacancies during the annealing process.