Journal of Crystal Growth, Vol.226, No.4, 443-450, 2001
Low thermal budget surface cleaning after dry etching for selective silicon epitaxial growth
We studied the influence of plasma etching damage on epitaxial Si growth using ultrahigh vacuum chemical vapor deposition. The damaged layer induced on substrate surface had an amorphous structure that had some carbon, oxygen, and fluorine in its composition. The damaged layer was removed by in situ preheating above 850 degreesC, before the growth, or by chemical dry etching (CDE). We found that CDE has the effect of decreasing the preheating temperature by 200 degreesC as compared to the case without CDE. Furthermore, the dependence of the surface roughness of grown films on post-etching treatments is also discussed.
Keywords:defects;etching;chemical vapor deposition processes;selective epitaxy;semiconducting silicon;field effect transistors