Fabrication of nitrogen-hyperdoped silicon by high-pressure gas immersion excimer laser doping

Barkby, JW, Moro, F, Perego, M, Taglietti, F, Lidorikis, E, Kalfagiannis, N, Koutsogeorgis, DC ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6167-1084 and Fanciulli, M, 2024. Fabrication of nitrogen-hyperdoped silicon by high-pressure gas immersion excimer laser doping. Scientific Reports, 14 (1): 19640. ISSN 2045-2322

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Abstract

In recent years, research on hyperdoped semiconductors has accelerated, displaying dopant concentrations far exceeding solubility limits to surpass the limitations of conventionally doped materials. Nitrogen defects in silicon have been extensively investigated for their unique characteristics compared to other pnictogen dopants. However, previous practical investigations have encountered challenges in achieving high nitrogen defect concentrations due to the low solubility and diffusivity of nitrogen in silicon, and the necessary non-equilibrium techniques, such as ion implantation, resulting in crystal damage and amorphisation. In this study, we present a single-step technique called high-pressure gas immersion excimer laser doping (HP-GIELD) to manufacture nitrogen-hyperdoped silicon. Our approach offers ultrafast processing, scalability, high control, and reproducibility. Employing HP-GIELD, we achieved nitrogen concentrations exceeding 6 at% (3.01 × 1021 at/cm3) in intrinsic silicon. Notably, nitrogen concentration remained above the liquid solubility limit to ~1 µm in depth. HP-GIELD’s high-pressure environment effectively suppressed physical surface damage and the generation of silicon dangling bonds, while the well-known effects of pulsed laser annealing (PLA) preserved crystallinity. Additionally, we conducted a theoretical analysis of light-matter interactions and thermal effects governing nitrogen diffusion during HP-GIELD, which provided insights into the doping mechanism. Leveraging excimer lasers, our method is well-suited for integration into high-volume semiconductor manufacturing, particularly front-end-of-line processes.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Scientific Reports
Creators:	Barkby, J.W., Moro, F., Perego, M., Taglietti, F., Lidorikis, E., Kalfagiannis, N., Koutsogeorgis, D.C. and Fanciulli, M.
Publisher:	Springer
Date:	23 August 2024
Volume:	14
Number:	1
ISSN:	2045-2322
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1038/s41598-024-69552-8 DOI 2229071 Other
Rights:	This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Science and Technology
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	30 Sep 2024 10:23
Last Modified:	30 Sep 2024 10:23
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/52321

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