Wafer Cleaning with Photoexcited Chlorine and Thermal Treatment for High-Quality Silicon Epitaxy

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Abstract
The authors propose a new photoexcited silicon-wafer cleaning technique, in which ultraviolet light irradiates the wafer through chlorine gas, followed by thermal treatment in a hydrogen ambient, to grow a high-quality epitaxial layer. The surface metal contaminants were removed through a thin native oxide without damaging the surface by photoexcited cleaning, and the remaining volatile chloride after the photoexcited cleaning at 150°C was removed by thermal treatment at 900°C. Further thermal treatment at 980°C removed even the thin native oxide and then made it possible to grow an epitaxial silicon layer. The SiO2 film formed using a conventional technique on the epitaxial silicon layer showed improved breakdown fields and a decrease of fixed-charge density. The results mean that a high-quality silicon-epitaxial layer has been realized by the cleaning procedure.

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