Nanocavity Buffer Induced by Gas Ion Implantation in Silicon Substrate for Strain Relaxation of Heteroepitaxial Si1-xGex/Si Thin Layers

To weight the importance of a nanocavity buffer in a SiGe deposition substrate, some P type (001) FZ Si wafers are implanted (A samples) or not (B samples) at room temperature with 5×10 16 He + cm −2 at 10keV. They are annealed at 700°C for one hour to form a nanocavity layer close to the Si surface. Then, the wafers are carefully chemically cleaned in a clean room to remove both organic and metallic impurities from the surface. They are coated either by 210 nm (A) or 430 nm (B) Si 1−x Ge x (x=0.20±0.02) alloy grown at 575°C for 0.42 hour by low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LP-CVD) with a growth rate of 8 to 17 nm.mn −1 . Both kinds of samples are studied by cross section transmission electron microscopy, X-rays diffraction, Rutherford backscattering, atomic force microscopy and etch pit counts. The association of these techniques demonstrates that the thin SiGe layer which is deposited on sample A is fully relaxed and that the threading dislocation density (estimated to hardly reach 4×10 3 cm −2 ) is at least one order of magnitude lower than what is obtained so far using ion implantation assistance in SiGe layer growth on silicon. The roughness of the SiGe surface is low enough to stand a further Si epitaxy. Nevertheless, the mechanism involved responsible for the threading dislocation annihilation and/or confinement is still unclear.