Thin Solid Films, Vol.294, No.1-2, 54-58, 1997
Quantification of Germanium and Boron in Heterostructures Si/Si1-xGex/Si by SIMS
The use of secondary ions mass spectrometry (SIMS) generally leads to very high sensitivity and depth resolution far silicon-based components. Low concentration elements such as dopants, are easy to quantify in silicon, whereas high concentration elements are subject to "matrix effects", i.e. the intensity does not vary linearly with the concentration. Matrix effects are presently studied in SiCe alloys using two primary beams O-2(+) and Cs+ and a CAMECA IMS4F instrument. Rapid thermal chemical vapor deposition grown Si/Si1-xGex/Si multilayer structures with x varying from 0 to 23.5% are preliminarily characterized by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RES) in thickness and atomic composition, The linear variation of the SIMS intensity ratio I-Gc(+)/I-Si(+) with the RES concentration ratio x/(1 - x) is confirmed for both O-2(+) and Cs+ beams. However, the linearity does not imply the absence of matrix effects. A variation of the ionization yields with Ge concentration and a similar behavior for tau(Ge+) and tau(Si+) actually lead to an exact compensation of the intensity ratio variation. Ar any energy, O-2(+) experiments systematically over-estimate the real Ge concentration, whereas matrix effects under Cs+ beam are weak, For polyatomic MCs+ ions, strong matrix effects are observed in Si1-xGex alloys. A quantitative analysis of major constituents and a dopant (boron) is used to determine the depth profiles of a thin base of a SiGe HBT heterostructure. Two different procedures are used depending on the primary beam. Consistent results are obtained for the concentrations of the major elements. The fully autonomous SIMS analysis with the Cs + beam is still penalized by the lack of sensitivity for boron in the secondary positive mode.
Keywords:MCS+ MOLECULAR-IONS;SECONDARY