Electrical activation process of erbium implanted in silicon and SIMOX

Abstract The electrical activation mechanism of erbium implanted in silicon and SIMOX (separation by implanted oxygen) following different annealing processes is studied by using the Van der Pauw technique in combination with photoluminescence and Rutherford backscattering angular scanning measurements. The results show that the Sactivation of the erbium is related to the lattice configuration. In the case of conventional furnace annealing, the activation corresponds to an occupation of erbium on substitutional lattice sites, but in the case of rapid thermal annealing, it corresponds to the occupancy of both interstitial with a tetrahedral (Td) symmetry and substitutional lattice sites. The transfer of interstitial erbium to substitutional sites corresponds to an electrical deactivation process due to partial compensation of the n-type and p-type carriers produced by the two different electrically active erbium sites.