Arbitrarily shallow arsenic-deposited junctions on silicon tuned by excimer laser annealing

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of arsenic monolayers on Si substrates are applied as a source of dopants for drive-in by high-power excimer laser annealing. By varying the laser annealing energy, the depth of the doping is controlled so that either Schottky diodes with a lowered saturation current are formed (low energy anneal) or ultrashallow n + p diodes (higher energy anneal). The transition from Schottky-diodes to pn-diode behavior is observed in the measured I–V output characteristics, indicating that the junction depth can be close to zero.