Athermal annealing of silicon implanted layer: beyond the light

Abstract

The mechanism of annealing silicon implanted layers has been a subject of debate for more than three decades. The great majority of the research work is restricted to only phenomenological results and elaborating changes in the resistivity of annealed layers. Less obvious parameters such as mobility or carrier lifetime are investigated only occasionally. Restrictions on the duration of thermal exposure, as dictated by state-of-the art semiconductor processing of devices, leads to the application of laser or optical irradiation as a processing technology. The presence of a plasma, generated by intense radiation, significantly alters the mechanism and time scale of energy deposition and heat dissipation. This paper discusses the physical processes involved in deposition, thermalization, and heat dissipation during the wafer irradiation. A novel non-thermal annealing approach based on the coherent excitation of phonons is proposed