Low-energy large-mass ion bombardment process for low-temperature high-quality silicon epitaxy

We have shown for the first time that the use of large mass ions in low energy ion bombardment process is quite effective in low-temperature silicon epitaxy. By using Xe ions (mass=131) instead of Ar ions (mass=40), the minimum ion bombardment energy for 300/spl deg/C epitaxy has been drastically reduced from 20 eV to 7 eV, thus minimizing the formation of defects. It is also experimentally shown that the energy dose determined by the product of ion energy and ion flux is a key parameter for epitaxy that compensates for the reduction in the substrate temperature. Low-energy, high-flux, large-mass ion bombardment is the direction for further reducing the processing temperature while presenting high crystallinity of grown films.